Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/708

 676 PERU stitutional right ; Dr Francisco Garcia Caldcron (late president of Peru), author of a dictionary of Peruvian legislation in two volumes ; Dr Francisco Xavier Mariategui, one of the fathers of Peruvian inde pendence ; and Dr Francisco de Paula Vijil (died 1875), orator and statesman as well as author, whose work Defcnsa dc ios Gobiernos is a noble and enlightened statement of the case for civil govern ments against the pretensions of the court of Rome. Manuel A. Fuentes, an able statistician and the author of the Estadistica de Limn, has also written a manual of parliamentary practice. On the whole, Peruvian literature since the independence has attained to highest merit in the walks of poetry and romance. The Guayaquil author Olmedo, who wrote the famous ode on the victory of Junin, and the Limenians Felipe Pardo and Manuel Segura are names well known wherever the Spanish language is spoken. Pardo, as well as Segura, wrote in a satirical vein. Both died between 1860 and 1870. The comedies of Segura on the customs of Lima society, entitled Un Paseo a Amancaes and La Saya y Manto, have no equal in the dramatic literature of Spanish America and few in that of modern Spain. From 1848 date the first poetical efforts of Arnaldo Marquez, Manuel Nicolas Corpancho, Adolfo Garcia, Clemente Althaus, Pedro Paz Soldan (better known under his n&m deplume of &quot;Juan de Arona&quot;), Carlos Augusto Salaverry, a son of the ill-fated general, Luis Benjamin Cisneros, Trinidad Fernandez, Constantino Carrasco, Narciso Arestegui, Jose Antonio Lavalle, Ricardo Palma, and Numa Pompilio Llona. Marquez is undoubtedly the most correct in diction and the most richly endowed with ima ginative sentiment among Peruvian poets of the present generation. Corpancho was a dramatist of the romantic school and author of a bright little volume of poems entitled Brevets. He perished in a shipwreck off the coast of Mexico when barely thirty years old. Adolfo Garcia is the poet of most robust and vigorous thought, and he has written much, but only one volume of his select poems has been published (Havre, 1870). Among other productions of great merit this book contains a sonnet to Bolivar, which is one of the most beautiful that has appeared from the muse of Peru. Althaus (d. 1880) was a poet, imaginative, tender, elegant, and very careful as regards rhythm and diction. Paz Soldan, a good classical scholar, has published three volumes of poems. Salaverry is one of Peru s best lyrical poets ; and the novels of Cisneros, entitled Julia and Edgardo, have secured him a lasting reputation. Fer nandez and Carrasco were two poets of merit who died very young. The principal work of Carrasco was his metrical version of the Quichua drama of Ollantay. Lavalle and Arestegui are chiefly known as novelists. Palma has published three books of poetry, entitled Armonias, Tcrbos y Gcrundos, and Pasionarias. Since 1870 he has devoted his great literary powers to writing the his torical traditions of Peru in prose, of which six volumes have already appeared. They display great research, and are written in a graceful and agreeable style. Palma is a member of the Spanish Academy, a distinction shared, among Peruvian poets, with Felipe Pardo. The collected poems of Llona have recently been pub lished ; his Canto de la Vida is highly spoken of for its depth of thought and elegance of diction. Peruvians have not neglected their early history and the study of the literature and language of the Yncas. Several have followed in the footsteps of Rivero. Jose Sebastian Barranca, the naturalist and antiquary, and Gavino Pacheco Zegarra, a native of Cuzco, have published translations of the ancient Ynca drama of Ollantay. Among Peruvian naturalists since the independence the most distinguished have been Rivero, the geologist and mineralogist, and his friend and colleague Nicolas de Pierola, author of Memorial de Ciencias Naturales. Dr Cayetano Heredia, rector of the college of medicine in Lima from 1845 to his death in 1861, was an ardent patron of medical science. His successor, Dr Miguel de Ios Rios, has followed in his footsteps ; and since 1856 many valuable con tributions have been published by Peruvian physicians in the Gaceta Medica de Lima. The most prominent publicists of Peru have been Mariategui, Vijil, Reynaldo and Cesareo Chacaltana, Ricardo Heredia, Jose Casimiro Ulloa, Toribio Pacheco, and Luciano Cisneros. Church. The Peruvian priesthood, though justly accused of tyranny in their relations with the Indians in early times, and of immorality in many instances, can point to numerous learned and upright pre lates, to devoted parish priests, to noble-minded teachers and ardent patriots, in their body. Founded in 1541, and raised to archiepis- copal rank in 1545, the see of Lima has been ruled by twenty-three prelates. The first was a Dominican friar, Dr Geronirno de Loaysa (1542-1575), who was more a politician than a priest. But the second, Dr Toribio Mogrovejo (1581-1606), devoted himself to the welfare of his flock, and died in the odour of sanctity, being finally canonized as St Toribio. Since the independence, Archbishop Luna Pizarro has added lustre to the see by his learning and ability. The bishopric of Cuzco was founded by Pope Paul III. in 1537, and has had twenty -seven prelates. Among them, Dr Gorrichategui (1771-76) was an excellent Quichua scholar and preacher and a devoted friend of the oppressed Indians ; Dr Mosooso y Pcralta (1777-89) was a prelate of consummate virtue and learning. The bishoprics of Arequipa, Guamanga (Ayacucho), and Truxillo were created in 1609. The missionary bishopric of Maynas or Chachapoyas was founded in 1802, those of Huanuco and Puno in recent times. The Jesuits were once very powerful and wealthy in Peru, and both Jesuits and Franciscans, while &quot;working at their calling as mission aries, achieved much valuable geographical work on the rivers and in the forests of the montana. Since the independence the religious orders have been gradually suppressed, yet monks as well as priests were in the front rank in advocating the cause of liberty. The ecclesiastical seminary at Lima, founded by St Toribio in 1601, was removed to part of the monastery of San Francisco in 1859, where it still flourishes, and where youths intended for holy orders arc educated. The priests occupy a very important position in the social system, and much of the teaching is in their hands. Such men as Luna Pizarro and Vijil have performed their duties in a singularly faithful and enlightened spirit. Unfortunately there is still deplorable laxity among parish priests, though there are many noble exceptions. Inhabitants. The early inhabitants of Peru originally consisted Native of several distinct nations, subdivided into many tribes, which were inhabi eventually combined in the empire of the Yncas. The principal ants, race was that of the imperial Yncas themselves, inhabiting the two central sections of the sierra, from the Knot of Cerro Pasco to that of Vilcaiiota, a distance of 380 miles. Here nature has worked on her grandest and most imposing scale. The scenery is magnificent, the products of every zone are collected in the valleys and on the mountain-sides ; but the difficulties in the way of advancing civilization, caused by the obstacles of nature, are such as to tax man s ingenuity to the utmost. A country like this was well adapted for the cradle of an imperial race. Six nations originally peopled this central mountain-region the Yncas in the valley of the Vilcamayu and surrounding plateaus, the Canas round the sources of the Apurimac, the Quichuas along the upper courses of the Pachachaca and the Apurimac, the Chancas, a very warlike people, from Guamanga to the Apurimac, the Huancas in the valley of the Xauxa, and the Rucanas round the summits and on the slopes of the Maritime Cordillera. These six nations were divided into &quot; ayllus &quot; or tribes, the most distinct of which were the still famous Morochucos and Yquichanos, brave mountaineers of the Chanca nation. There are reasons for believing that these nations once spoke different languages, especially the Chancas, but, excepting a few words imbedded in the general language of the Yncas, they are now lost. In the basin of Lake Titicaca there was another race, anciently called Colla, but now better known as Aymara. Their language survives, and, though closely allied grammatically, the vocabulary differs from that of the Yncas. Within the Colla region, but differing from the rest of the inhabitants both in language and physical appearance, there was a savage tribe called Urns, inhabit ing the reed-beds and islands in the southern part of Lake Titicaca. In the region north of the Knot of Cerro Pasco comprising the basin of the Marafion there were many warlike tribes speaking a language which the Yncas called Chiuchaysuyu. The most important of these tribes were the Couchucos, Huamachucos, and Ayahuecas far to the north. The Peruvian coast appears originally to have been inhabited by a diminutive race of fishermen called Changos, a gentle and hos pitable people, never exceeding 5 feet in height, with flat noses. They fished in boats made of inflated seal-skins, lived in seal-skin huts, and slept on heaps of dried seaweed. Vestiges of this early race may be traced in the far south, as well as at Eten, Morrope, and Catacaos in the north. The later and more civilized coast- people were a very different and an extremely interesting race. They appear to have formed distinct communities in the different valleys each under a chief, of whom the most civilized and powerful was the Chimu, who ruled over the five valleys of Pativilca, Huarmey, Santa, Yiru, and Moche, where Truxillo now stands. The subjects of this prince made great advances in civilization, and his vast palaces near Truxillo now form extensive ruins. The irrigation works of this coast-people were most elaborate ; every acre of cul tivable ground was brought under cultivation, and water was con veyed at high levels from great distances. The Yncas called these people Yuncas, but they have entirely passed away, giving place to the negroes and Chinese labourers who now swarm in the coast- valleys. There is no dictionary of the Yunca language, but there is a grammar and a short list of words written in 1644, before it had entirely ceased to be spoken. The Ynca or Quichua tribes of the Andes of Peru average a height of 5 feet to 5 feet 6 inches. They are of slender build, but with well-knit nruscular frames, and are capable of enduring great fatigue. Their complexions are of a fresh olive-colour, skin very smooth and soft, beardless, hair straight and black, the nose aquiline. They are good cultivators, and excel as shepherds by reason of their patience and kindness to animals. They are natur ally gentle, most affectionate to their families, with an intense love of home ; but at the same time they are enduring and brave. The Aymaras are more thick-set than the Yncas, and their chief phy-