The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-18
IIM
1.-THE CITY OF THE THREE
 KINGS.D
PecuIiarIties of Ptzarro's Capital.

Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier.)
 Lima, Peru, s. A., March 10, 1903.
 Pizarro the ex-swineherd, must have been rather hard up for names when he dubbed his Peruvian capital La Cui- dad de los Tres Reyes, the City of the Three Kings" It came about ill this way: After he had subdued one of the royal brothers who claimed the Inca throne and treacherously strangled the other, he found little difficulty in con- quering Cuzco, the splendid City of Gold" which was at that time the capital of Peru. As soon as he and his few European followers, a band of drunken adventurers whom Spain was glad to be rid of. had glutted them selves with the vast treasures of that place, they marched westward, not so much in searcho new worlds to con- quer as to find more convenient spot in which to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. They did not relish being surrounded on all sides by Indians, who although subdued, outnumbered them hundred | to one; but preferred to be within sight of the sea, the broad highway that led toward home. This emerald : valley of Rimac, with a river running through it, the ocean on one side and i the towering Andes on the other. com bined all the advantages they sought. So here they established the second Spanish city in South America, which soon grew to be one of the proudest and most luxuriant capitals of those profigate days and continued to be the seat ofa corrupt vice-regal court for three centuries. It happened that Pi- zarro designated it's site on January 6, 1855 (old style), the day of the festi- val of the Epiphany, or the manifesto tion of our Savior to the Magi, who in King James version of the New Tes~ lament are called the Wise Men from the East, but are known in all the old Spanish traditions as the Three Kings" Hence he made a tremendous celebration of that feast of the Epipha- ny and christened his capital accord ingly. Then Carlos V. of Spain sent over not only his benediction and congratulations, but added some com plimentary words to it's already pom oCI JUS lillc, IllcthlliS IL IS hOSl 4NO- ble and Most Royal City of the Three Kings"-so it appears in the original 1 charter-and formerly ceded its appro- priate coat-of-arms; three golden crowns for the three kings and a rayed star on an azure field, in memory of the star which led them to the spot where the wound Child lay. But that was altogether too long title for eve ry-day use, and so the sasy-going Spaniards fell into habit of calling it 'The City of Rimac," the latter being the. name of he valley in which it stands and also of the river that runs l through it. It is small and quiet stream through most of the year, ex- cept during the summer months, the season of melting snows and rains among the mountains, where it rises, when it swells into a deep, swift and turbulent torrent, whose yellow tide re- sembles the Missouri in spring-time. 1 It is as essential to this valley as is | the Nile to Lower Egypt, and indeed without it Lima would long ago have dried up and disappeared from this rainless region. To the Rimac, which furnishes ample irrigation, he city 1 owes it's own water supply and the fer tility of it's surrounding fields and gar dens.
 | One walks about the streets of Lima l as in dream, oppressed by a multi tude of historical "reminiscences that l crowd upon the memory. Here long 1 line of viceroys duled with almost in dependent power, not only over the ter ritory that now constitutes the repub- 1 lie of Peru, but also the vast provinces of Chili, La Platta and New Granada, 1 including the modern divisions ofEcua- dor and Bolivia. Here Santa Rosa, la
 Patrona de todas Americas, "the Pa aroness of all the Americas"-was born and died, the only American woman of l the northern or southern continents
 who ever had the honor of canoniza- | ton. Here .stout-hearted PZarro was assassinated by ''the men of Chile," the
 avengers of Almagros' murder; and
 here his bones repose in the crypt of
 the great cathedral. For three hum
 dred years Lima was the most impor-
 tant ecclesiastical dependency of the
 Church of Rome on the western hemis- | phere. In this stronghold the Inquisi-
 tion, with all it's horrors, remained &C.,
 tive and powerful long after it's deca-
 dence in Madrid. The churches and
 convents of Lima were as magnificent
 as any in Europe, and endowed with
 incalculable wealth. The Coleiio de
 San Marcos, the oldest college in
 America, was founded here in 1851, just
 sixty-nine years before the Pilgrim
 Fathers landed at Plymouth, and fifty
 eight years before Hendrick Hudson
 sailed into the harbor of New York!
 Here, too, were centered the products
 of the mines of Potosi and Cerro del Pasco-of Puno, Castro and Veireina-
 those Fl Dorados about which fables
 were told that set all the world agog.
 In 1881, I think it was, La Plata, then
 viceroys of Lima, rode through these
 streets on a horse whose mane was strung with pearls and whose shoes
 were of pure gold. over broad pave
 ,nent made of solid ingots of silver. To it's sea-gate. Callao came the gal