Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/707

 PERU 675 with by the irregularity of the ground. High-pitched red tiled roofs take the place of the flat roofs of the coast. The upper stories often recede, leaving wide corridors under the overhanging eaves, and in the &quot; plazas &quot; there are frequently covered arcades. Fruit-gardens and fields waving with lucerne and barley encircle the towns, and there is almost always a background of mountain -ranges. The principal interior towns in the north of Peru are Caxamarca, Huaraz, Huanuco, Cerro Pasco, the centre of the great silver-mining industry, 13,200 feet above the sea, Tarma, and Xauxa. Huancavelica owed its existence to the famous quicksilver mine. Ayacucho, formerly Guamanga, founded by Pizarro in 1539, is a charming abode amidst lovely scenery. Be tween Ayacucho and Cuzco are the pleasant towns of Andahuaylas and Abancay. Cuzco (see vol. vi. p. 744), the centre of Peru, the old capital of the Yncas, lies at the foot of the famous hill of Sacsahuaman. South of Cuzco are many delightful places in the vale of Vilcamayu, and the towns in the Collao, the chief being Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca. (n- Commerce. The resources of Peru consist of its mineral wealth, i rce. its flocks, yielding valuable wool, its crops, and the products of its virgin-forests. Silver-mines extend along the whole length of the Cordilleras from Hualgayoc to Puno. The mines are worked here and there, the great centre of this industry being at Cerro Pasco, where 1,427,592 ounces of silver were produced in 1877. The value of the silver exported from Peru in that year was 575,000, of copper 330, 000 ; of gold there is no return. The exportation of guano from the Chincha Islands began in 1846 and continued until 1872. Between 1853 and 1872 there were 8,000,000 tons shipped from these islands. The deposits on the Guaiiape Islands were first worked in 1869, and from that year to 1871 as many as 838,853 tons were shipped, 460,000 tons remaining. On the three Macabi Islands there were 400,000 tons of guano in 1872, and large deposits on the Lobos Islands. But the most important discoveries of guano- deposits, since the exhaustion of the Chincha Islands, have been on the coast of Tarapaca. In 1876 the quantity at Pabellon de Pica was calculated at 350,000 tons, at Punta de Lobos 200,000 tons, at Huanillos 1,000,000 tons (buried under huge boulders of rock), at Chipana 250,000 tons. The total quantity of guano on islands north of Lima may be 600,000 tons, and on the coast of Tarapaca 1,800,000 tons. Since 1830 nitrate of soda has been exported from the southern ports of Peru, the deposits being found on the western side of the Pampa do Tamarugal in Tarapaca. This region contains sufficient nitrate for the supply of Europe for ages. From 1830 to 1850 the export from Iquique amounted to 239,860 tons ; in 1875 the annual export reached its maximum (326,869 tons). The sugar cultivation in the coast -valleys is a great source of wealth. In 1877 the yield was estimated at 85,000 tons, valued at 1,360,000; of this quantity 63,370 tons went to Great Britain. Cotton, an indigenous product of the coast-valleys, is next in im portance to sugar, the estates being worked with intelligence and a due outlay of capital. The cultivation of the vine is also a pro fitable industry, a well-known spirit and excellent wine being made in the valleys of Pisco and Yea, and in the districts of Majcs and Moquegua. Rice-crops are raised at Ferrehafe ; olives are grown largely in the Tambo valley ; and the silk -worm and cochineal insect have been successfully cultivated. In the sierra large quantities of wheat, barley, and potatoes are raised, and millions of pounds of alpaca and sheep s -wool are exported. From the forests of the montaiia come chinchona bark, coca, coffee of the finest quality, cocoa, india-rubber, and some medicinal roots. )m- Communication. Several railroads have been constructed of late unica- years to connect the coast-towns and valleys with their seaports. DU. That from Payta to Piuva, contracted for in 1872, is 63 miles long ; one from the port of Pimentel to Chiclayo and Lambayeque has a length of 45 miles. There are 50 miles of railway from Eten to Ferrenafe, 93 from Pacasmayo to Magdalena, 25 from Malabrigo to Ascopc and the Chicama valley, 85 from Salaverry to Truxillo, 172 from Chimbote to Huaraz (only 52 finished). Several short lines radiate from Lima. A line from Pisco to Yea is 48 miles long, from Mollendo to Arequipa 107, from Ylo to Moquegua 63 miles, from Arica to Tacna 39 miles ; and there arc railroads in Tarapaca connecting the nitrate-works with the ports of Pisagua, Iquique, and Patillos. At Cerro Pasco a short line, begun in 1869, connects the silver-mines with the town. A railroad was commenced in 1870, from Callao and Lima, across the western and central Cordilleras to Oroya, 12,178 feet above the sea in the valley of Xauxa, a distance of 136 miles. It ascends the valley of the Rimac, rising nearly 5000 feet in the first 46 miles. It then threads intricate gorges of the Andes, along the edges of precipices and over deep chasms. It tunnels the Andes at a height of 15,645 feet. There are sixty-three tunnels, and the bridge of Verrugas spans a chasm 580 feet wide, resting on three piers, the centre one being 252 feet high, made of hollow wrought-iron. This great work is completed (1884) as far as Chicla, a distance of 86| miles. Another railroad across the Andes connects Arequipa with Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The summit is crossed in a cutting only 6 feet deep, 14,660 feet above the sea. The first locomotive reached Puno on 1st January 1874. The line is 232 miles long, and is to be prolonged to Cuzco. The cost of the Oroya line has been 4,625,887, and of the Arequipa and Puno line 4,346,659. Two steamers were launched on Lake Titicaca in March 1874, which carry the traffic from Bolivia to Puno. Extensive harbour- works have been completed at Callao since 1870 ; and iron piers have been constructed at other ports. Steam communication connects the Peruvian ports on the Huallaga and Maranon with the Brazilian line at Tabatinga. Education and Literature. Universities and colleges were founded Educa- in Peru very soon after the conquest, and there was intellectual tion. progress both among the Indians and the families of Spanish descent. The university of San Marcos at Lima is the most ancient in the New World, having been created by order of Charles V. in 1551. The college of San Carlos was founded in 1770, and the school of medicine in 1792. At Cuzco the university of San Antonio Abad was founded in 1598, and the college of San Geronimo at Arequipa in 1616. Since the independence there has been very considerable intellectual and educational progress in the country. There is a university of the first rank at Lima, 5 lesser universities, 33 colleges for boys and 18 for girls, 1578 schools for boys and 729 for girls, besides private schools. The most prolific Litera- author in Spanish times was Dr Pedro de Peralta y Barnuevo, author ture. of an epic poem called Lima Fundada and many other works. Towards the latter end of the last century scientific studies began to receive attention in Peru. M. Godin, a member of the French com mission for measuring an arc of the meridian near Quito, became professor of mathematics at San Marcos in 1750 ; and the botanical expeditions sent out from Spain gave further zest to scientific re search. Dr Gabriel Moreno (died 1809), a native of Huamantanga in the Maritime Cordillera, studied under Dr Jussieu, and became an eminent botanist. Don Hipolito Unanue, born at Arica in 1755, wrote an important work on the climate of Lima and contributed to the Mercurio Pcruano. This periodical was commenced in 1791 at Lima, the contributors forming a society called Amantes del Pais,&quot; and it was completed in eleven volumes. It contains many valuable articles on history, topography, botany, mining, commerce, and statistics. An ephemeris and guide to Peru was commenced by the learned geographer Dr Cosme Bueno, and continued by Dr Unanue, who brought out his guides at Lima from 1793 to 1798. In 1794 a nautical school was founded at Lima, with Andres Baleato as instructor and Pedro Alvarez as teacher of the use of instruments. Baleato also constructed a map of Peru. A list of Peruvian authors in viceregal times occupies a long chapter in the life of St Toribio 1 by Montalvo ; and the bibliographical labours of the Peruvian Leon Pinelo are still invaluable to Spanish students. The topographical labours of Cosme Bueno and Unanue were ably continued at Lima by Admiral Don Eduardo Carrasco, who compiled annual guides of Peru from 1826. But the most eminent Peruvian geographer is Dr Don Mariano Felipe Paz Soldan, whose Geografia del Peru appeared in 1862. His still more important work, the Diccionario geografico cstadistico del Peru (1877), is a gazetteer on a most complete scale, displaying an immense amount of labour, research, and literary skill. In 1868 appeared his first volume of the Historia del Peru Independiente, and two others have since been published. The earlier history of Peru has been written in three volumes by Sebastian Lorente ; Mariano Rivero has ably discussed its antiquities ; and Manuel Fuentes has edited six interesting volumes of memoirs written by Spanish viceroys. But the most valuable and important historical work by a modern Peruvian is undoubtedly General Mendiburu s Diccionario Historico- Biografico del Peru, a monument of patient and conscientious re search, combined with critical discernment of a high order, which has certainly secured for its accomplished author a permanent place in the history of literature. As laborious historical students, Don Jose Toribio Polo, the author of an ecclesiastical history of Peruvian dioceses, and Don Enrique Torres Saldamando, the historian of the Jesuits in Peru, have great merit. Among good local annalists may be mentioned Juan Gilberto Valdivia, who has written a history of Arequipa, and Pio Benigno Mesa, the author of the Annals of Cuzco. The leading Peruvian authors on constitutional and legal sub jects are Dr Jose Santistevan, who has published volumes on civil and criminal law ; Luis Felipe Villaran, author of a work on con- 1 The city of Lima produced two saints, the archbishop St Toribio, who flourished from 1578 to 1606, and Santa Rosa, the patron saint of the city of the kings (1586-1616), whose festival is celebrated on 26th Ausust.