# The Present State of Peru/5g

DESCRIPTION OF THE FOUNTAIN IN THE GREAT SQUARE OF LIMA.
In the centre of the square, and three feet and a half above its plane, rises a level surface of masonry, the sides of which have a dimension of fifteen yards. The ascent of stone with which it is provided, is surrounded by an open aqueduct, to collect the discharged water, which thence precipitates itself into a moat. Above is stationed the principal basin, having a diameter of nine yards, surmounted by eight lions, and as many griffons recumbent at their feet. It is covered externally with exquisite moldings and vases of flowers in bas-relief, and internally lined, both on its plane and circle, with an inlaid pavement of different colours. In the centre it has a pedestal, eighteen feet in height, composed of three square partitions, finely ornamented. This pedestal supports the second basin, three yards in diameter, which ​perses the water by eight mascarons, or grotesque figures representing the heads of animals. Over this basin rises a column two feet in diameter, and two yards in height, adorned with a variety of foliages and beautiful devices, and having four bandalets which support the most elevated basin. This last has a circumference of somewhat more than six yards, and is surrounded by ten beautiful seraphims which spout the fluid it collects. In its centre appears, in a pyramidal form, another finely wrought column, two yards in height, which receives the vase of foliage that terminates in the pharos, composed of six columns, two feet and a half in elevation, forming a cupola on which is seen the figure of Fame, a yard and three quarters in height, with a helmet on the head, the arms of the sovereign of Spain in the right hand, and in the left, the trumpet with which she proclaims his name and magnificence.
This figure of Fame leads to a particular observation which will atone for a short digression, namely, that the great square is the scene and principal rendezvous of all the public processions that take place in the capital. In the one by which the Indian inhabitants celebrated the coronation of the present king of Spain, Charles IV. several emblematical figures were introduced by them with great taste and effect, as will appear by Plate VI. the female portrayed in which represents, very fancifully, the Minerva of Peru.
Pl. VI.
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Female Indian, habited as the Minerva of Peru. Pub. Feb. 11. 1805 by Richard Philips 6 New Bridge Street
At each angle of the level surface of masonry, appears a small basin formed in a socle; together with three salient ornaments, from one of which a pyramid, adorned with flowers in bas-relief, rises, and conveys, by the means of three tubes, the water to its basin, which is likewise fabricated of bronze.
This production of art, in every part of which an air of magnificence is combined with a fine architectural taste, is surrounded by twenty-four pieces of artillery, and by sixteen iron chains, which leave, in the centre and at the four angles, a narrow space barely sufficient to afford an access to the inhabitants.
If the description were to break off in this place, the short sketch that has been given might be deemed by the reader to be comparatively of little utility. It cannot fail to be agreeable to him to be made acquainted with the conduits by which the fountain is supplied with its water, and the artificial mode by which that fluid is distributed through the pipes.
In the small square of the college of St. Thomas there is a general reservoir, whence the water, destined for the public and private buildings throughout the city, is regularly distributed by different conduits. From the site of this reservoir to the foot of the fountain, there is a declivity of twelve yards and one-third. The water thus flowing precipitately, as well on account of the inclined plane, as of the impulse it received in its descent from its primitive source, is collected in an oval cistern, two yards and a half in height, and one and a half in diameter, where a dam is formed. Bounding impetuously, it escapes by the free passage which presents itself, with a ​gree of violence that causes it to diffuse itself copiously in the air, in which it seems to dart on every side its liquid arrows. Now gracefully shooting, and taking a curve similar to that of a beautiful plume of feathers, it falls with a festive and harmonious sound; and, as if in raillery, dashes itself against the fluid particles that had been before dispersed, bathing at the same time with its dewy spray the most elevated basin of the fountain. This basin empties itself, by ten pipes, into the second, in which the fluid becoming redundant, is driven, by eight other pipes, into the principal basin. Being there accumulated, it is distributed by a similar number of conductors and their corresponding flutes, which, acting as valves, confine it in certain depositories situated at the foot of the fountain. The compression to which it is there subje6led, occasions it to rise forcibly, and to make good its passage, as well by the pyramids placed at the four angles of the level surface of masonry, as by the eight lions, and the griffons recumbent at their feet, which, with great rapidity, return it to the basin whence it was derived. The abundance of the water which flows, by forty-six pipes, forming a kind of convex belt, is highly agreeable, and truly realizes all the embellishment that art and ingenuity could devise.
Our eyes, accustomed to view these surprizing efforts of the ​human capacity, are too apt to withhold their admiration from an enterprize, which, to be brought to perfection, required much meditation, many trials, and a considerable portion of time. If, however, we recur to past ages, and bestow an attentive consideration on the annals they have transmitted to us, in proportion as we perceive the slowness of their progressive advances, we become sensible of all the excellence it has to boast.
The earliest men, content with the waters with which they were supplied by the rivers and springs, applied their industry solely to the intention of conducting them by certain channels formed without order or method. The necessity of raising them to irrigate arid and lofty grounds, or of clearing them away from inundated spots, induced them to have recourse to certain means, which, however imperfect, were not without their effect. By the aid of machines moved by a great number of men stationed at different points, the waters of the Euphrates were elevated to the gardens of the opulent Babylon. The Egyptians, embarrassed by the frequent inundations of the Nile, thought of various means by which they might drain their grounds; but were ignorant of the contrivance which was requisite for that purpose. They fancied it to be a cylinder, round which a tube should revolve, both withoutside and within, in the form of a screw, and, by agitating the water, should raise it so long as the cylinder should be kept in motion. This was in reality the screw of Archimedes.
In his History of the Progress of the Human Understanding, Savarien asserts, that Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome, conducted to that city the water of the fountain Picenia, by ​the means of arches and aqueducts admirably constructed. This assertion is, however, destitute of all probability, such a magnificence being utterly incompatible with the poverty of Romulus, and with the huts of the shepherds which were consumed by the fire of the Gauls. Other writers, on the authority of the fifth law of the twelve tables, affirm that the decemvirs were the first to construct aqueducts; but without recurring to the indigence of the Romans at that epoch, it is simply necessary to pay a little attention to the context of the above law, to regard this opinion as an unreasonable conjecture, since it does nothing more than treat of the trenches that were to be dug in the plains, to serve as receptacles for the water which was at the same time to be made to communicate with other grounds.
​The aqueducts the fabrication of which was begun by Caius Caesar, and which were brought to their highest perfection by the emperor Claudius, were incontrovertibly superior to the productions of that nature which had been before undertaken. The elevated columns, and dilated arches, that served as canals for the conveyance of the immense masses of water, which, in precipitating itself from the lofty summit of the Aventine hill, appeared to irrigate a profound valley, are the most authentic and demonstrative monuments of the sublimity of the mind of man.
The Romans were not, however, satisfied with these rare edifices, which vied in magnificence with the superb pyramids of Egypt, and exceeded them in utility ; but meditated daily new modes of improving the science of the movement of the waters, a part of which they preserved in a determinate place. Marcus Agrippa, when edile, undertook to convey them to a fountain; to unite many streams after they had been well cleansed; and to form seven hundred lakes or pools; five hundred piles; and a hundred and thirty receptacles; adorning the whole of these works with three hundred statues of marble and bronze, and four hundred columns. He thus contributed towards the splendour of Rome, and bestowed a lasting benefit on his fellow-citizens, whom he constantly supplied with salubrious and abundant waters.
These fountains, these immense aqueducts, on which prodigious sums were expended, were not confined to the limits of Rome: the provinces of the empire likewise enjoyed all the beauties of their fine architecture, and the copious waters they distributed artificially. The Roman aqueduct entitled the Pont-du-Gard, in the vicinity of Nismes, boasts at this time a ​degree of preservation which evinces both the skill of the architect, and the solidity of the materials employed in its construction. Public utility was not the sole object of these magnificent undertakings, in many instances of which vanity and diversion had a predominant share. The water destined for those edifices of superb architecture, the baths and nymphæa, was conveyed to them by well-formed pipes, at the same time that different fountains were made to play, so as to combine a refreshing coolness with an agreeable perspective. Julius Capitolinus makes mention of the nymphæa fabricated at Rome by Gordian, and dwells with particular pleasure on the one constructed by Clearcus, prefect of Constantinople, in the forum of Theodosius, the water for the supply of which was brought from the magnificent aqueduct built by the emperor Valens. Socrates, in his Ecclesiastical History, extols the Aquileian baths in the above city, which were destroyed by fire in the year of Christ 430, and in which art displayed all its graces and beauties.
Even individuals displayed a rare magnificence in the fountains and reservoirs of water they had in their houses, as Avell in the city as in their country retirements. Pliny, in his celebrated epistle to Apollinaris, gives a most pompous description of his Tuscan villa, which was embellished by a profusion of fountains, cascades, &c.; and Cicero speaks of the conduits, stiled Euripi and Nili, provided with lofty arches, that conveyed, from great distances to the houses of the grandees, the immense masses of water distributed in the piscince, fountains, and lakes, which a boundless vanity had multiplied.
Pl. VII.
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Indians, male and female, in burlesque costumes. Pub. Feb. 1. 1805 by Richard Philips 6 New Bridge Street
Another subject of an Indian festival is introduced in Plate VII. The male and female it represents are arrayed in burlesque costumes, such as are generally adopted by the Peruvian aborigines, with a very picturesque effect, on these occasions of hilarity and rejoicing.
* ↑ The first of these partitions, four feet in height, including its base and socle, is beautifully wrought. The second, which has an elevation of eleven feet, is decorated by moldings, and by foliage and other devices at the edges and corners. On the four sides are inscriptions containing the names and qualities of the persons who were concerned in the construction of the fountain. By one of these inscriptions it appears, that the pile was raised, by order of count Salvatierra, the viceroy, by Antonio De Rivas, a celebrated architect, in 1650. The third partition is three feet in height, and is adorned with a variety of curious devices.
* ↑ The water, flowing out of this basin, rises somewhat higher towards the cupola of the pharos; that is, it is elevated to the height of thirteeen yards and seven-twelfths, equal to the descent calculated from its primarv source.
* ↑ The most elevated basin empties itself by ten pipes; the middle one by eight; the lions and griffons by sixieen; and the pyramids by twelve; forming in the whole the above number.