Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/16

x of the petticoat in some of the female figures, may, with other peculiarities of a similar kind, be thus explained.

It would be to anticipate the pleasure of the reader, whose industry, in the agreeable task of exploring what may be in a manner considered as a terra incognita, is not to be questioned, to point out to his notice all the curious and novel information he will obtain, by a perusal of the sheets now respectfully submitted to him. There are some leading points, however, on which it may not be inexpedient to touch in this Preface. One of these is, the extraordinary depopulation of the Indian tribes, since the conquest: from upwards of eight millions of souls, at which they were computed in 1551, they have been reduced to little more than half a million. They are, notwithstanding, absolutely necessary to the prosperity of the mines, which they alone are capable of working, and which have progressively fallen off in their produce, in a nearly similar ratio. A milder and better policy has been latterly adopted towards these unfortunate victims of Spanish ambition, and Spanish cupidity. Would that this observation could be made to apply to the condition of the negroes, whose lot in Peru appears to be rigorous, beyond any example that has been elsewhere furnished!

Natural history has been, within the last few years,