The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1891-01-08

great lieutenant. De Soto, one of the
4ablest cavalry officers of the world, is
ALWAYS read with deepest interest. we
have no certain data as to the bOunda-
lries of ancient Peru, but they included
a, territory larger, no doubt, than the
.present state, and it was peopled by a
Isemi-civiliZed race with an efficient gov
eminent by the Incas. The country, at
the time of the invasion by the SpanlardS
under the command Of the illiterate and
cruel Pizarro, in 1882, had many good
roads and was under fair cultivation,
having population of forty or nifty
millions.
Pizarro. with less than 200 men, was
tbospitably received by the Inca whom
he treacherously imprisoned without the
loss of man, and demanded of the peo-
pie an immense ransom for their king.
The natives collected and brought to
iPfZarro silver and silver utensils which,
when melted down, were worth as bull
ion about eighteen millions of dollars.
But instead of releasing the Inca Alta
hualpa, the rascally Spaniard had him
put to death. History does not furnish
more horrible Illustrations of human
greed and barbarity than are portrayed
in the conquest of Mexico by Cortez and
that of Peru by PiZarro. But we must
pass over the intervening centuries and
the long misrule of Spain, and try and
give pen picture OF the Peru OF to-day.
AREA AND POPULATION
Peru is bounded on the north by Ecua-
dor. on the south by Chill and the Pa
cifc Ocean, and ON the east by Brazil
and Bolivia, and it stretches 1000 miles
along the coast Of the Pacific, which
bounds it on the west. Peru is about
ten time as large as the State of New
York, and has to-day only about three
and half millions of people. Sixty per
cent of these people are Indians and
twenty-five per cent. half-breeds, twelve
per cent. are whites, and the remainder
negroes and Chinese.
CLIMATE.
Though in the tropics the prevailing
south winds temper the heat, so that no
days at Lima, which is near the equator,
are so warm as many summer days In
Chicago. The trade winds and the range
of the Andes Mountains cause an alb
sence of rain, and, except in the extreme
north and the extreme south, between
the Andes and the ocean, rain never
falls, and all agriculture depends upon
irrigation, as in Colorado and Utah.
Here umbrellas, overshoes, and over
coats are never needed. The weather is
so uniformly delightful that it is never
a subject of conversation; it is SO spring
like that crops grow the year round
This continuous mild weather is said
not to agree perfectly with some Eu-
ropeans and North Americans. Under
the Incas the very sides of the Andes
were terraced to get more land, and the
whole territory was cultivated as is the
valley of the Nile and the densely peo-
pied provinces of China. The three
centuries of Spanish control changed all
this. Spanish is the language Of the
country, and the Roman Catholic is the
established religion.
AGRICULTURAL LAND.
These are found in the valleys of in
Vulnerable streams which flow from the
Andes to the Pacific, and where irriga-
lion is easy and water abundant These
irrigated lands show an almost uneX-
ampled fertility. Peruvians claim that
the snow of the mountains send a water
to their fields which is rich in plant
food, and that it is only necessary to
pillow two or three inches in depth, or to
barely tickle the soil, to make it smile
with abundant vegetation. The pillow
in use is nothing but a forked stick,
sometimes pointed with iron, and has
only one handle, as the plowman finds
it necessary to use one hand wholly in
thrashing his oxen, two of which draw
the plow which is attached to a beam
fastened across the cattle's foreheadS.