Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVII, October 1851. Various
new building was erected within the walls; and it is doubtful if within the succeeding twenty years, as many buildings have been added to the city.
The distant view of Lima, as one approaches it from the sea is very magnificent. Entering the harbor of Callao, upon the right lies the bare and rugged island of San Lorenzo. In front are the noble but dilapidated castles, and the white houses of Callao, presenting a gay and somewhat grotesque appearance, with the flags of the foreign consuls fluttering before their residences. In the rear stretches a broad plain, sloping upward toward a crescent-shaped range of barren hills, which inclose the fertile valley of the Lurigancho. At the foot of the mountains, apparently, rise the countless spires and towers of Lima, drawn up in relief against their dark sides. Still further in the distance are seen the giant ranges of the Andes, whose snowy summits are usually vailed by thick and sombre clouds. The harbor of Callao is magnificent; and the landing, at a fine mole built of stone, and surrounded by a substantial iron railing, is good. The town itself, though displaying some commercial activity, is mean and insignificant. Leaving Callao for Lima, we pass the little village of Buena Vista; then half way to the city we come to a place called Magdalena, consisting of a pulperia or dram-shop, a convent, and a splendid church. Here in the olden time the Spanish viceroys, at the expiration of their five years' term of office, used to meet their successors, and deliver up their authority to them. The convent has been suppressed, and the church is deserted, but in front of it stands a ragged monk, with a tin dish in his hand, soliciting alms from the passers-by.
When within about half a league from Lima, we enter upon the fine road called the Alameda del Callao. It is beautifully shaded with poplars and willows, with a handsome promenade upon each side, furnished at regular distances with stone seats, and bordered with the quintas, or country houses of the wealthy Limanians, embowered in luxuriant gardens, and surrounded with fruit-trees. By this broad avenue, we enter, through an arched gateway, into the city of Lima. This Alameda was opened in 1800, on the 6th of January, the anniversary of the foundation of the city. It was laid out by a man who filled the post of viceroy of Peru, under the title of Marques de Osorno. The history of this man is somewhat singular. About the middle of the last century, a petty Irish shopkeeper, bearing the somewhat incongruous name of Don Ambrosio O'Higgins, occupied a little shop, which is still shown under the area of the cathedral. Times went hard with Don Ambrosio; he failed in his petty traffic, abandoned the little shop by the cathedral, bade farewell to his old friend and brother tradesman, La Reguera, and wandered to Chili. It was a time of Indian hostilities, and all other occupations failing, there was at least a demand for men to be shot. Don Ambrosio entered the army, showed himself brave and capable, gained promotion, distinguished himself, discovered the Indian city of Osorno, and was honored with the title of the Marques of Osorno. In 1786, he returned to Lima in the capacity of Viceroy, where, as archbishop, he found none other than his old friend, La Reguera. Trade had prospered with him; he had returned to Spain, studied, embraced the clerical profession, and was sent back to Lima as archbishop five years before O'Higgins came as viceroy.
The first impression which the traveler receives upon entering Lima, by no means fulfills the anticipations he had been led to form from its appearance at a distance. The entrance is by the periphery of the semicircle, upon the side furthest from the Rimac. This quarter contains only dilapidated squares and filthy houses. But as he advances toward the Plaza Mayor, the appearance of the city becomes greatly improved. The general aspect of the houses strikes an American as somewhat novel, from the fact that a large proportion of them consist of but one story, very few exceeding two. This mode of building is rendered necessary by the frequency of earthquakes, which render buildings of a more imposing architecture extremely insecure. The houses of two stories have usually two doors in front, opening upon the street. One of these is the azaguan, which constitutes the main entrance to the house; the other leads to the cochera or coach-house. The azaguan opens into a spacious patio or court-yard. Directly opposite this entrance are two large folding-doors, which open into the sala or hall of the dwelling-house, beyond which is the cuadro or reception-room, furnished as splendidly as the means of the occupant will allow. Adjoining the cuadro are the various rooms appropriated to the use of the family. The sala and cuadro are of the full height of the house, and the flat roof of these two apartments forms a sort of terrace, called the azotea, which is paved, surrounded with a railing, and covered with an awning. The second story of the remainder of the building contains rooms which open into a balcony projecting over the street. This balcony is boarded up to the height of about three feet, the remainder being composed of lattices or glazed windows, and forms the favorite lounging place of the inhabitants, where they can watch the passers-by in the streets. The peculiarity of the domestic architecture of Lima, by which, with the exception of the balcony, the rooms open not upon the street, but upon the court-yard, gives the city much the appearance of an Oriental town. Where the houses are of but one story, the almost entire absence of windows and openings gives the street a mean and gloomy appearance, almost like continuous lines of dead walls. But where the dwellings are of two stories, the long lines of balconies and verandas gayly ornamented and trellised, projecting far over the foot-pavements, present a gay and festive aspect. In some parts of the city are houses of much greater height, and of a far more imposing architecture. But they are to a great extent ruinous and dilapidated, having been abandoned by their ancient occupants, for fear of being overwhelmed in them by earthquakes. When tenanted at all, it is principally by the poorer classes, who are willing to brave the insecurity for the sake of the saving in the rents. The outer walls are usually of adobes, or sun-dried brick, as far as the first floor. The second story is usually composed of a wooden frame-work, upon both sides of which canes are nailed, or fastened by leather thongs, and the whole is then plastered over, and painted to imitate stone, the deception being aided by the apparent massiveness of the construction. The division walls are also made of canes plastered over. The roofs are flat, composed of rafters, covered with mats or cane, with a layer of clay spread above them, sufficient to exclude the rays of the sun and the heavy dews. A single prolonged shower would be sufficient to dissolve the whole city; but as it never rains there, these slight walls and roofs are all that is required. Lima is justified in placing her dependence in architecture upon a reed, rather than upon stone. The more solid and massy the walls, the less protection do they afford against the terrible earthquakes which are of periodical occurrence, and by which more than once the city has been reduced to a heap of ruins; while these light cane fabrics yield to the shock, and when it has passed resume their places, with little apparent injury; and even if demolished they do not occasion that fearful peril of life which results from the overthrow of more stable fabrics.
There are few places the inhabitants of which present so great a diversity of complexion and physiognomy as in Lima. There is every gradation and intermixture of race, from the fair Creoles of unmixed European descent, who pride themselves upon the purity of their Spanish blood, to the jet black negro of Congo, whose unmitigated ebony hue bears testimony equally unequivocal to his pure African lineage. Between these two extremes is an almost innumerable variety of mixed races, each having its own peculiar designation, indicating the precise proportion of European, Indian, and negro blood in their veins, each marked with its own peculiar physical, intellectual, and moral characteristics; and each finding its chief boast in the nearness of its relation to the white race, and looking down with contempt upon those a shade darker than its own.
In 1836, when the population of the city was a little more than 54,000, it was composed of about the following proportion of the different races: white Creoles, all of European, and mostly of Spanish descent, 20,000; Negroes, 10,000; of whom a little less than one half were slaves; Indians, 5000; mixed races, 19,000; these are of every shade of complexion, from the Mestizo, the child of a white father and an Indian mother, whom only a keen and practiced eye can distinguish from a White, and to whom no higher compliment can be paid than to inquire whether he is not a Spaniard, to the Zambo who can only show claim to a portion of white blood, on the ground that to all the vices of the negro race, he adds others peculiar to the Whites.
The white Creoles are of slender figure, and of middling height, with features strongly marked, fair complexion, and black hair. Like the descendants of the Spanish race throughout all the Western World, they have degenerated from the parent stock. The males have even in youth a look of premature age; as though the powers of nature were exhausted, and insufficient