Part 23

The Chamber of Deputies occupies the ancient home of the College of St. Marcas, the oldest institution of learning in America, founded by the Society of Jesus in 1551, sixty-nine years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.

The San Franciscan convent and church are two of the most extensive structures in the whole of America, and cost as much as the Capitol at Washington, if not more. The whole interior is covered with the most beautiful tiles, which have stood the test of three centuries, and still surpass the best that modern genius can produce. These tiles are celebrated all over Europe, not only for the enormous quantity of them--for they cover many acres of surface--but for the beauty of their design and perfect finish. In this convent is shown the bed on which St. Francis died, the sack-cloth robe that he wore, his sandals, his rosary, and the coffin in which his body was taken to Rome. The monk who acted as our cicerone insisted that the founder of his order died in the room in which these relics were, and pointed out the exact spot where he breathed his last; but a brief cross-examination brought him up to an explanation that he meant that this room was modelled upon the one in which St. Francis died.

Lima did produce a saint, however--Santa Rosa, a woman who was famous for her wealth, her beauty, her self-abnegation, and her devotion to the Church, and was canonized by Pope Clement X. in 1671. Her remains lie in the Church of Santo Domingo, and an extensive convent has been erected in her honor. She was the only American ever canonized, and the fact that a Peruvian received this exclusive honor has made her not only the patron saint, but one of the great figures in the history of the Catholic Church on this continent. The anniversary of her birth is always celebrated throughout South America, and the third centennial, which occurred in April, 1886, was the occasion of one of the grandest demonstrations ever seen on the coast of the South Pacific.

Six months before, the most reverend archbishop at Lima, the dean of the Catholic hierarchy in Spanish America, issued an eloquent pastoral, calling upon his flock to unite with him in honoring the memory of Santa Rosa, the only American saint and the patroness of two continents. The invitation was generously responded to. The Government immediately made as liberal an appropriation of money as was possible in the depleted condition of the treasury; private citizens and corporations contributed to the funds, and a commission of distinguished persons was appointed to form a programme of the festivities. A cordial invitation was sent by the archbishop to the principal religious dignitaries in South and Central America and Mexico to visit Lima on this memorable occasion, and to accept the national hospitality.

On the 20th the ceremonies were commenced. The body of Santa Rosa was taken from its resting-place in the Church of Santo Domingo, and borne in solemn procession to the church erected in her honor. The day was declared a holiday. From every housetop flags and streamers were floating; the different legations and consulates hoisted their national emblems; flowers were strewn in the streets through which the cortege was to pass; and from the windows and balconies hung superb drapery of silk and velvet. The remains of the saint, deposited in a beautifully ornamented urn, were carried on the shoulders of the Dominican monks, and the mayor and municipality of the city, with the few remaining survivors of the War of Independence, acted as the guard of honor. The municipal and private schools of both sexes followed, the little girls charmingly dressed in white and blue, the favorite colors of Santa Rosa, and with garlands of roses in their hands. Along the route the different fire brigades had erected artistic arches from their ladders and apparatus, and as the procession passed, white doves were loosened from their fastenings, and flew gracefully amid the banners and canopies overhanging the streets. In some of the streets traversed carpets were laid down and covered with roses. Arriving at the Church of Santa Rosa of the Fathers, the precious urn was deposited on the altar, surrounded by a dazzling blaze of light, and was watched over during the night by a special guard of honor.

The next day the same ceremony was repeated, the object being to carry the remains of the saint to those places with which her life was most intimately associated. Thus the Convent of Santa Catalina, the Church of Santa Rosa of the Mine--establishments founded by the intercession of the Rose of Peru--were visited, and the final ceremonies were performed at the cathedral. The interior of the cathedral, larger than the cathedral in New York, was handsomely decorated with hangings of scarlet velvet bound with gold; the superb altar, with its pillars cased in silver, covered with lights and flowers; and the venerable archbishop, with his numerous retinue of monsignori, canons, and friars, officiated at the solemn high-mass, with the votive offering especially permitted by the Holy Father, in reply to a request from the Lima ecclesiastics.

The square without was filled by troops from the citadel of Santa Catalina, national salutes were fired, and all Lima in gala dress was in the streets. The Ministers of State, the Justices of the Supreme and Superior courts, and all of the principal authorities, joined in the procession, which, after the conclusion of the ceremony at the cathedral, proceeded to Santo Domingo to deposit the remains underneath the grand altar, where for nearly three centuries they have rested.

Santa Rosa was born at Lima in the year 1586. She was of humble parents, her father being a matchlock man in the escort of the viceroy, and her mother a woman of the lower class. She was christened under the name of Isabel, but while yet an infant the beautiful color appearing on her cheeks caused her to be called Rosa. From her earliest years she manifested a deep religious spirit, and although poor in the world’s goods, her extraordinary charity and self-sacrifice for the poor and sick brought her into the notice of the people. Refusing all the inducements and invitations to enter upon a monastic life, she steadily dedicated her efforts towards doing good. Many miraculous cures are attributed to her. She died in 1617. Shortly after her death the authorities of Lima petitioned the archbishop that the necessary investigation be initiated to establish her sanctity, and when the proofs were obtained they were laid before Pope Urban VIII. at Rome, who in 1625 sent a commission to Lima to conclude the investigation. After due consideration of the facts presented to the Holy College at Rome, Pope Clement IX., in 1668, ordered the canonization of Rosa under the title of St. Rosa of Lima.

In Lima, for a population of about one hundred and twenty thousand, there are one hundred and twenty-six Catholic churches and twelve monasteries and convents; and the same religious privileges extend all over Peru. There are two Protestant churches in the republic. One of them is in Lima, and is usually without a pastor, being of the Church of England school, and supported by the English-speaking residents; the other is at Callao, and an active young Protestant, Rev. Mr. Thompson, formerly of Philadelphia, is its pastor. The church is unsectarian, and is largely sustained by the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, a British corporation which has a monopoly of commerce on the west coast, and keeps its headquarters at Callao. No attempt at Protestant missionary work has ever been made in Peru, although Mr. Thompson says the field is very inviting. His time is spent mostly among the sailors who haunt Callao by the hundreds, and in looking after the English-speaking congregation under his charge. There is no Sunday in Peru. The shops are open on that day as usual, and in the afternoon bull-fights, cock-fights, and similar entertainments are always held. The women invariably go to mass in the morning, and represent the entire family, as very few men are ever seen in the churches. Under President Prado, from 1869 to 1876, the Catholic Church was subjected to the same sort of treatment it has received in the other republics, but his successors were more hospitable towards the priests, and the Church is regaining much of its ancient influence. Some of the confiscated monasteries have been restored, and a bishop presides over the lower branch of the national legislature, having been elected by a popular vote in one of the interior cities. He is a jolly-looking old padre, rosy and rotund, and has not the appearance of suffering much mortification of the flesh.

The bones of Pizarro, the Indian butcher, lie in the crypt of the grand cathedral which he built in 1540, and which is still the most imposing ecclesiastical edifice in all America. It is said to have cost nine million dollars; and that amount may have been spent upon it, but the money came from the old Inca temples, which were robbed of their gold and silver ornaments and stripped of their carved timbers by the Spaniards. The latter never produced anything in Peru by their own efforts. They simply expended their plunder for the benefit of themselves and the Church. Of the ninety millions of dollars in silver and gold which Pizarro is said to have realized from his evangelical work among the Indians, the King of Spain got one-fifth and the Church even a larger share, so that it could afford to build cathedrals and convents as fine as those of Europe, and endow them with fabulous wealth. Prescott says that from a single Inca temple Pizarro took 24,800 pounds of gold and 82,000 pounds of silver. One of his lieutenants asked for the nails which supported the ornaments in this temple, and got 22,000 ounces of silver. It was this money that erected the magnificent churches which Lima has to-day, and which made the capital of the New World the most luxurious and profligate known to history.

Later, the marvellous products of the mines of Potosi and Cerro de Pasco added to the fabulous wealth of Peru. In 1661 La Palata, the viceroy, rode from the palace to the cathedral on a horse every hair of whose mane and tail was strung with pearls, whose hoofs were shod with shoes of solid gold, and whose path was paved with ingots of solid silver. It was during this time that the galleons from the East, “from far Cathay,” laden with gems and silks and spices, went to Callao to exchange them for the products of Potosi and Pasco; while, out of sight, on the verge of the horizon, Sir Francis Drake and the bold John Hawkins and other buccaneers lay-to in their swift-sailing cruisers to snatch the

treasure-ships as they came around the island of San Lorenzo, and carry home the booty to lay it at the feet of Elizabeth, the virgin queen of England.

But all this grandeur is gone, and the last traces of it are now to be found in the pawn-shops of Lima, which are full of rare old silver, paintings, china, and lace. The people are so poor that they are compelled to sell their jewels to get bread and meat. The stagnation of business has deprived them of their ordinary incomes from real estate, and the war has taken off the laborers, so that the sugar haciendas and the mills are idle. I met people whose incomes were formerly hundreds of thousands of dollars, from rentals and interest on investments, who are now compelled to patronize the pawn-shops, because their tenants cannot pay rent and their investments no longer produce a profit. The paper-money of the country is as valueless as the Confederate bills were during our civil war. One issue, the Incas, is entirely worthless. The Government tried to enforce its circulation by locking up men who refused to accept it as legal tender; but the merchants marked up the prices of their goods, and charged two thousand dollars a yard for calico, when the Treasury surrendered, and issued another loan which is almost as bad as the first. You give a twenty-dollar bill to your bootblack and two hundred and fifty dollars an hour for a hack. It costs about six hundred dollars a day for board at the hotel, and fifty dollars for a bunch of cigarettes.

House-owners who have leased their property for a term of years without specifying in what sort of money the rent shall be paid are compelled to accept this worthless paper at par. I met a lady whose income from rents ten years ago was more than a thousand dollars a week in gold, but now it is only the same amount in paper--scarcely enough to pay the servants--and she is selling her bric-à-brac to live. The haciendas and farms are no longer tilled, because for several years past all the laborers have been pressed into the army; and the sugar plantations are useless, for the machinery by which they were operated was destroyed by the Chilians during the recent war.

The devastation which the Chilian army created was almost equal to that caused by Pizarro when he invaded the homes of the peaceful Incas. The lines of march of the Chilians are shown by the complete destruction of everything they could break down or burn. Whole cities, villages, farms, factories, were swept away by a malicious desire to do as much injury as possible, regardless of the rights of non-combatants, and in violation of all the laws of civilized war. The beautiful winter resorts of Peru, Milleflores (its Newport) and Chorillos (its Long Branch), the residence-places of the wealthy people and the haunts of those who sought rest--where there were palaces as beautiful as those of Paris, and parks like the legendary gardens of Babylon--were entirely destroyed, not by accident, but by dynamite and other explosives. Exquisite marble statues now lie in fragments upon the ground, artistic fountains were shattered, trees were girdled, irrigating ditches destroyed, and every possible vandalism was committed, not only on the property of Peruvians, but upon that of foreigners, whose claims for damages will amount to more than Chili can ever pay.

The magnificent trees in the parks, along the boulevards, and even in the botanical garden, were cut down for fuel by the soldiers of Chili; the entire museum of Peruvian curiosities, one of the largest and finest in the world, was packed up and shipped to Santiago; the books in the National Library were thrown into sacks and sent after the museum, and historical paintings were cut from their frames as private plunder. The greatest painting of Peru--Marini’s “Burial of Atahualpa, the last of the Incas”--was stolen from the wall where it hung, but the protests of the diplomatic corps induced the Chilians to return it. The churches and private houses were stripped in a similar manner, and what could not be stolen was burned. Nothing was sacred in the eyes of these modern vandals, whose purpose was to deprive the Peruvians of everything they prized.

The evidence of a refined taste in art and music is everywhere apparent in Peru. There is scarcely a home without a piano, and the city of Lima once rivalled Madrid in its treasures of art. There remain but two notable statues--that of Columbus, in marble, representing him in the act of handing a crucifix to an Indian girl; and that of Bolivar the Liberator, upon a rearing horse, in bronze (like the statue of Jackson in Washington), which stands in front of the old Inquisition building, on the spot where heretics were burned two hundred years ago. The famous arch over the old bridge, which was erected in 1610, has been destroyed, and many other artistic ornaments of the city which have been written of again and again are gone.

The President occupies the former residence of Henry Meiggs, the Californian, who did so much for Peru. It is a magnificent structure, erected and furnished when money had no value to the owner; but, like everything else in Lima, it is only a relic of its original beauty, and as a measure of economy a corner of the lower floor is rented for a grocery.

Those who have travelled everywhere say that the women of Lima are the most beautiful in the world. There is something about the climate of the country, where rain never falls,

and where decay is almost unknown, that gives them a brilliancy of complexion that women of other lands do not possess. Perhaps their national costume does much to heighten their beauty, for any woman not positively ugly would look well in the embroidered manta that the ladies of Lima always wear. This manta is a shawl of black China crape, and the amount of silk embroidery upon it indicates the wealth of the wearer. Some of them are extremely beautiful and cost as much as five hundred dollars; but ordinary mantas, such as the majority wear, can be bought for fifteen or twenty dollars in Peruvian money, which is worth twenty-five per cent. less than American gold. A very common article of dyed cotton is imported from England at a cost of three or four dollars, for the use of the negro and Indian women. The manta is worn by every woman, regardless of her rank or wealth, whenever she appears on the street; but in their homes, at the opera, and when they go out to afternoon receptions or evening balls, the ladies adopt the Parisian styles, and dress with a great deal of taste.

The manta is square in shape and about two yards in size. It is folded so as to be triangular, and the centre of the fold is placed upon the forehead, where there is usually a bit of lace that hangs down to the eyes. One end of the manta falls down the front of the dress as far as the knee, while the other is thrown around the shoulders and fastened at the breast with an ornamental pin. Thus, usually only the face is shown; and when a maiden or a matron wishes to disguise herself, she draws the shawl up so as to cover her mouth and nose, and permit only her great black, roguish eyes to be seen. And such eyes! Always large, age never seems to dim them, and no degree of self-discipline can rob them of or subdue their coquettish appearance. The poet who wrote

“Of that dark queen For whose mere smile a world was bartered,”

described a Lima lady. The manta is usually drawn so closely about the figure as to show its outlines with the most conspicuous distinctness, and the young women of Lima are as famous for their beauty of form as for their beauty of face.

They are always slender, generally short of stature, and as graceful as sylphs; but they lose their beauty of figure with maternity, and one seldom finds a married woman more than thirty or thirty-five years of age, if she is the mother of children, who retains the statuesque grace of maidenhood. They ripen early, reach their prime at sixteen or seventeen, and generally marry at that age. At twenty-five they are fat, but they never lose the radiance of their eyes or their complexion. Their stoutness comes from the lack of exercise and the excessive use of sweetmeats, for they spend their lives in rocking-chairs, munching _dulces_, as they call confectionery.

There is a romantic story about the manta which explains the reason that it is always black. The Peruvian women never wear colors in the street, and this custom is observed by the aristocracy as well as by the peasantry; nor do they ever wear bonnets except at an opera, and there very seldom. The same is true of the women of Ecuador and Chili, although in the city of Valparaiso, which is the most modern in its customs and in the style of living of any place on the west coast, the use of the manta is gradually dying out, and it is worn only at church. No woman with a bonnet on will be admitted to any Catholic church on the west coast. Sometimes strangers wear them in, but the sextons and ushers invariably ask that they be removed. Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren, of Washington, in her book called “South Sea Sketches,” relates that she was ordered out of a church because she was wearing a bonnet, and misunderstanding what was said to her, took no notice of the command until quite a commotion was raised, when some lady explained its cause. A bonnet is called a _gorra_ in Spanish, and Mrs. Dahlgren was very much amused at its similarity to the familiar Irish ejaculation.

It is said that the custom of wearing the manta originated among the Incas, but that they wore colors until the assassination of Atahualpa, their king, by the Spaniards under Pizarro. Then every woman in the great empire, which stretched from the Isthmus of Panama to the Strait of Magellan, abandoned colors and put on a black manta, and it has since been worn as perpetual mourning for “the last of the Incas.” There is probably some truth in this story, for in the graves of the Incas that have been destroyed by scientific resurrectionists, have been found female mummies with mantas of brilliant colors wrapped around them, and fastened

with pins very much like those worn at the present day. It is also true that the natives, the peons of Peru and Ecuador, the descendants of the Incas, never wear anything except black, and still celebrate with impressive and appropriate ceremonies the anniversary of the day on which Atahualpa was strangled. In Chili the custom has died out, for the Inca empire was never able to sustain itself there against the savage Araucanian tribes of Indians who inhabited the southern range of the Andes.

The Inca women in Peru and Ecuador are not at all pretty. They are dwarfish in stature, broad across the shoulders, and resemble in feature the squaws of the North American tribes, except that they have the almond-shaped eyes of the Mongolians; and it is probably true, as urged by the antiquarians, that the Incas were of the same origin as the Chinese, for their customs, their adeptness at all sorts of ingenious work, and their manner of living bear a striking resemblance to those of the interior provinces of the Chinese empire. The Incas have had their blood diluted by intermarriage with the lower grades of the Spanish race, and it is very difficult to find pure natives now. The people of the mixed race are called cholos.

It is the transplanted Spanish rose, the pure Castilian type, that blooms with the greatest beauty in the gardens of Peru. The climate has refined it, and has clarified the dark olive tint that is found in Castile. The greatest beauties in Lima are the descendants of the oldest families--those of the longest residence in the country--and their loveliness appears not only to have been transmitted from generation to generation, but to have been enhanced thereby. This is true not alone of the aristocrats, for some of the loveliest girls belong to the humbler families, and are found in the tenement-houses, clothed in the shabbiest garments, which serve only to heighten their loveliness, and to make them fair prey for the wolves that prowl around in Lima as they do everywhere else. The fate of these girls, if described, would make a chapter more horrible to contemplate than the disclosures recently made in London. Their beauty is a fatal gift, and their poverty and ignorance make them an easy prey to the tempter. Seldom are they allowed to remain at home after the age of fourteen or fifteen, when they become the mistresses of the haughty dons. But the social laws of Spanish America are so liberal that these women are treated much better than in lands of higher civilization, for it is not only expected that every

man who can support a mistress will do so, but his reputation will suffer among his fellows if he does not.