Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-12-27
RlIBLES ARoOID LIMA.
SOME OTHER LIGHTS OF THE OLD CAP
ITAL OF PERU.
Visit to the Senate Chamber and House
of Representatives-V icissi-
tudes of st. Marks.


LIMA, Peru, 1890.
First let us look in upon the Peruvian
Senate Chamber and Hall d Congress. The
former, as before mentioned, is the old
council room of Inquisition. and in the very
place where the presiding officer sits,
an inoffensive looking little gentleman
with claw-hammer coat and hair parted
in the middle, the stern, black-gowned In.
QUESTION used to pronounce their awful
sentences upon trembling victims. To
reach the three. hundred year.old building
we cross the Plaza de Bolivar, in which
many "heretics" (which name included all
who were at variance with the reigning
powers, temporal as well as spiritually,
were burned to death, and where
thousands of merely suspected men and
women have been publicly scourged. Most
of these deeds of darkness, however, &C.
Cured before the beginning of the present
century, for the Inquisition was abolished
in this country about 1872. This plaza con-
tains notable statue. one of the two or
three that the Chilean army left to Lima
out of the many fine works of art that once
adorned it representing Simon Bolivar, the
liberator, seated on a plunging steed in an
impossible attitude, something like the
equestrian statue of General Jackson, in the
United States capital.
The National Congress holds its sessions
in the long, narrow and somewhat dim and
dingy apartment, that for three Centuries
was tn e chapel of st. Marks University.
the very Oldest temple of learning in the
Western World, which the Liberal" Gov.
eminent confiscated from the church in
1869. Spectators are penned in a very mar
row gallery, high up above the heads of
the representatives, and the latter are
ranged like so many tolerably we'll behaved
school boys, all around three walls of the
room, in two rows of chairs without desks.
Near the center of the fourth side is placed
long table; at one end of it sits the pre-
siding officer, and at the other tall cross
is fixed upon which the Congressman are
required to swear that they will support
the constitution. Between the crucifix and
'Senor Presidente" are number of clerks
and reporters, and among them few are
scribbling away in shorthand, as indus
triously as do their cousins in Washington.
Whenever formal speech is to be made,
the orator mounts little platform which
has sort of pulpit.desk upon it; but ordi-
nary debates are participated in by mem.
bers from their respective chairs, who sell
dom take the trouble to rise while speaking
The most interesting things about this
place pertain to the far-away past. One
remembers that this college was founded
sixty-nipe years before the Puritan Fathers
sought our northern shores. The first
steps toward it were made by the authori-
ties of Lima as early as 1850, when they
dispatched Tray Tomas de San Martin
(who afterwards become the Bishop of
Chuquisaca), in company with Pedro de la
Gasca, one of the first Governors of Peru.
over to Spain to apply for erection of an
electrical temple of learning in this new
country. The Emperor Charles V. and
his wise mother Juana not only granted
the desired decree but conceded to the Uui-
versity which they ordered to be estab-
lshed at Lima, all the prerogatives eHjoyed
by that of the Salamanca. Pope Plus V.
confirmed its erection by an especial bull.
and the learned DR.. Don Gaspar de Meuesis
became its first rector. Still the university
so nobly begun, was without a suitable
building or even q site for its foundation.
until the year 1874, when piece of ground
was purchased for ii, near the parish
church of San Marcelo, and hence the col
lege derived its name San Marcus" The
site, however, was found to be inconveni-
emily distant from the center of the city;
so it was sold, another purchased near the
palace of the Inquisition and the present
building completed about three hundred
and fourteen years ago.
1t consists of a great courtyard sur
rounded by cloisters, on the walls of which
queer frescoes are printed, supposed to rep
resent the arts and sciences. Doors lead
from the cloisters into the various lecture
rooms and into the great hall of the Uni
versity, where still hang the portraits of
the most learned men of Perus earlier DAYS.
The first full-hedged ID. D." who was
graduated here was Don Domingo de San
Tomas, Spanish Dominican, who after
wards attained great local celebrity, whose
ugly countenance may still be seen in the
great hall. The first graduate born in
Peru was Don Juan de Balboa, professor of
the Quichua language and canon of the
Lima cathedral.
The cultivation of literature during the
time of the Viceroys. though confined by a
jealous priesthood within the narrowest
possible limits, made considerable progress
and was advanced by several men of learn
ing and ability, sprung from the noblest
families of Spain. Perhaps the most
scholarly of all the vice-Kings was Senior
Don Antonio de Mendoza, grandson of
the Marquis de Santillana, the renowned
poet and warrior of the court of John H.,
WHO CldlluSu luc Slu d5 tuc vi MS
family. But Don Antonio died in 1851,
after very brief enjoyment of his power
and before he had much time to do more
than lend his mighty influence toward the
establishment of this university.
Since Peru's independence from Spain,
and the general emancipation of the minds
of her people, poetry, painting and music
have received great attention from the i'm
aginative but somewhat frivolous youth of
the country. But the truth is that the
modern society of Lima is too dlssipated
and artificial to afford very promising soil
for the growth of extraordinary genius in
any direction.
The benefcent institutions of Lima,
though not numerous, are certainly very
creditable. Prominent among them is the
"Sociedad de Beneficencia," which was es-
tablished in the year 1925, and has the
general guardianship and supervision of
all the public charities. 1t also has the d.
rection OF the bull-ring, the COCKPIT and
the lottery. from which popular amuse-
ments it derives a considerable share of its
revenue. Private individuals frequently
subscribe to it generous sums; mGtrons &C.
casionally get up a swell Charity Ball"
much as the same thing is managed in the
United States and other parts of the world;
and sometimes the bellies and beaux of
the city give grand concert for its bene-
fit, principally with the music of mando.
Inns and guitars. in which they excel.
Here comes one of tine sights of Lima, a
female milk peddler, who sits astride her
mule, with bare foot and tin can dang
ling on each side of the saddle. These
milk men" in pSticoats neither toot q
horn nor ring bell as do their northern
brothers; but riding from house to house,
they stop at the door Of each customer and
give peculiar shrill little scream. which
the servants instantly recognize. The quart
measure of this one is a gourd, just as it
grew, except that hole has been cut in
one side and the seeds scraped out; but
whether nature made it the exact size to
contain what the law recognizes as quart.
we need not trouble ourselves to inquire, if
the customers do not. Indeed that form