Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/232

204 perses the water by eight mascarons, or grotesque figures representing the heads of animals. Over this basin rises a column two feet in diameter, and two yards in height, adorned with a variety of foliages and beautiful devices, and having four bandalets which support the most elevated basin. This last has a circumference of somewhat more than six yards, and is surrounded by ten beautiful seraphims which spout the fluid it collects. In its centre appears, in a pyramidal form, another finely wrought column, two yards in height, which receives the vase of foliage that terminates in the pharos, composed of six columns, two feet and a half in elevation, forming a cupola on which is seen the figure of Fame, a yard and three quarters in height, with a helmet on the head, the arms of the sovereign of Spain in the right hand, and in the left, the trumpet with which she proclaims his name and magnificence.

This figure of Fame leads to a particular observation which will atone for a short digression, namely, that the great square is the scene and principal rendezvous of all the public processions that take place in the capital. In the one by which the Indian inhabitants celebrated the coronation of the present king of Spain, Charles IV. several emblematical figures were introduced by them with great taste and effect, as will appear by Plate VI. the female portrayed in which represents, very fancifully, the Minerva of Peru.

To return to the fountain. The substance of which all its parts are composed is bronze; and its respective ornaments are conformable to the rules of the composite order of civil architecture. It has an elevation of fifteen yards and one-third to the helmet of Fame. Deducting one yard and three-quarters for the height of that figure, there remain thirteen clear yards and