the most picturesque situations, evidently ap- | preciated the scenic grandeur of their country. The palaces of an ancient nobility are yet to be discovered by their crumbling walls, in places now rarely trodden by the foot of man, and where the jungle has for ages effaced every trace of former cultivation. Boundary stones indicating a very minute subdivision of the land are still to be met with in every part of Peru; and innumerable hnacas, or vast burial-mounds, attest the former populousness of the country. The western coast, once one of the most populous and productive districts of the empire, is now, with the exception of a few valleys, a desert; and these valleys, which open upon the Pacific, do not now contain a tenth part of their former population. The valley of Santa, for instance, once maintained 700,000 inhabitants; the number does not now ceed 12,000. There were once in the valley of Ancullama, in the Province of Chancay, 30,000 individuals who paid tribute; there are now only 425 people, of whom 320 are negroes. The city of Cuzco, which numbered 200,000 inhabitants at the time of the Spanish conquest, now contains only 20,000. A vast territory, extending from the Amazon to the Andes, and from the shore of the Pacific to the sources of the Paraguay, is now almost as depopulated as if it had been smitten by a destroying angel, or had fallen under the scourge of a Genghis Khan. ex The representations of the conquerors of Peru must of course be received with considerable reserve. They were thrown into a state of temporary delirium by the wonderful wealth that met their eyes on every side. In a country which possessed no external commerce, and where money was unknown, gold and silver could have been valued only as ministering to luxury, or as applicable to ornament and to the arts. It is quite credible, therefore, that the royal gardens at Cuzco possessed fountains of solid gold, and imitations in gold and silver of flowers, fruits, insects, animals, and birds. Vases and statues of gold on every side presented themselves to the excited Spaniards; but when they pretend to describe funeral piles constructed of golden faggots, and vast granaries bursting with a plethora of gold-dust, we may be certain that they have wandered into the regions of romance. No object so much excited their cupidity as the magnificent golden plate which symbolized the Peruvian Deity in the great temple at Cuzco, and which, sparkling with the finest emeralds, was placed to catch the first rays of the sun as it rose above the mountains and to fill the edifice with dazzling light. This sacred emblem, before which millions had bowed in adoration, fell by lot to one of the adventurers, by whom it was afterwards lost in play. It was ultimately broken up by the military ruffians, who plundered indiscriminately temples, palaces, and tombs.* The administration of Spain in Peru resembled that of her other great Transatlantic dependencies. The viceroyalties of the New World were often conferred on men of honour and humanity, but they were the instruments of a policy adapted only to ruin a colony, and eventually to impoverish the empire itself. If the highest appointments of the Crown were generally conscientiously made, this cannot be said of the inferior offices; and of all the South American viceroyalties, Peru was the one which most excited the cupidity of parvenues and adventurers. It was pre-eminently the land of gold. Every ruined spendthrift and needy grandee looked to it as a place wherein to repair his shattered fortune. Even the Church was often recruited from persons notorious either for their incapacity or their vices; and it was not uncommon for the degenerate member of some noble family, whose conduct had brought reproach upon its name, to undergo a sudden conversion, and to be at once transformed into a colonial bishop or a dean. The riches of the country were believed to be inexhaustible. There was no necessity to dig the earth, or to grope in the beds of streams, or to undergo any other exhausting toil; the labour of thirty millions of human beings, reduced to a condition of practical slavery, was to be commanded for the production of gold. It is asserted by Robertson, and his statement has been repeated by subsequent writers, that the humane laws which were framed by the great Council of the Indies for the protection of the natives of South America negative the common belief that they were subject to the revolting cruelties which have been generally imputed to the first settlers in the New World. The rapid depopulation of the country can, however, be accounted for in no other way. The regulations which emanated from Spain were certainly intended to protect the Indians from colonial oppression; but the edicts were rarely put in force, and the provincial magistrates, who were themselves often the greatest offenders, possessed an efficacious mode of blinding the eyes and shutting the ears even of the members of that august court, with many of whom they were generally believed to have had secret relations. The 'mita,' or system of forced labour, caused that unprecedented consumption of human life in Peru, which The late General Miller ascertained this cu rious fact from the archives of Cuzco. has reduced the country to its present depo- | tations almost too great for humanity. The pulated state. The mines had been worked instant one of these great functionaries set for ages by a system of forced labour under his foot in Peru, he was surrounded with native dynasties, but it was regulated by jus- greater pomp than his sovereign, and he retice and humanity. No toil was allowed ceived a homage rarely bestowed on the that proved injurious to health, and the hours greatest of kings. Alcaldes crowded round of labour were limited. The demand made him and vied for the honour of holding his by their new masters upon the industry of stirrup and helping him to his horse; goverthe Indians was enforced without measure nors of provinces supported the golden canopy and without mercy, and it was.as efficacious under which he walked in state; flowers were in depopulating the country as if it had been strewn in his path; and the grossest forms of visited by the united plagues of pestilence, adulation met his ear; for he could make or famine, and the sword. nar the fortune of any man in his viceroyalty. The number of inhabitants in that portion One act of homage paid to one of these great of the ancient empire of the Incas which functionaries is highly characteristic. On the now constitutes Peru, has been computed to occasion of his public entry into Lima, the have once amounted to ten millions. At the streets through which he passed were paved close of the eighteenth century it had fallen with silver ingots of the value (it is alleged) to less than two millions. We had occasion of sixteen million pounds. The revolt of in a recent Article* to notice a system prac- Peru from Spain was the necessary result of tised by the petty chiefs of Borneo called the system on which the great dependency the 'serra,' or forced trade, in which the head had been governed. It had felt alike the man of a district enters another district, and heavy oppression of the monarchy and the compels its inhabitants to purchase goods at arrogant domination of a democracy. The exorbitant prices. The same form of oppres- revolutionary junta of 1808 was as proud, sion was practised by Europeans in Peru. imperious, and unconciliating as the Crown The 'reparto resembled the 'serra' of had ever been; while the great American Borneo. Merchants and traders were allowed colonies, with a growing sense of their imthe privilege, for which they doubtless paid portance, possessed no small portion of the highly, of entering any Indian village, and hereditary pride of the mother country. forcing the people to buy their goods, whether They were no longer content to be regarded they required them or not. The refuse of as inferiors, and to be held in no estimation warehouses and all the unsaleable articles except as ministering to the wants or augwhich encumbered the shops of Lima and menting the power and dignity of Spain. Cuzco were thus imported into the mining Like the other South American republics, districts and thrust upon unwilling purchasers. Peru owed to foreign aid much of the success Damaged velvets and tawdry brocades were of its efforts to acquire freedom. The courage offered to Indians who required only a cover- of English auxiliaries had been chiefly instruing of coarse baize; men were requested to mental in effecting the liberation of Columbia, buy silk stockings who passed their lives in and a portion of the same force afterwards the beds of rivers searching for gold; spec-assisted in achieving the independence of tacles were thrust upon youths who were gifted with the eyes of eagles, razors upon those who had no beards, and books upon people who were unable to read. The vampires of the State sucked the blood of the unhappy Indian during his life, and the vultures of the Church preyed upon his corpse. A funeral, furnished by the priest, wax lights and masses, consummated the work of plunder, consumed the little property that remained, and made his widow homeless and his children beggars. It is easy to account for the intensity of the hatred which induced the Indians to sympathise with the Creoles in their revolt from the mother country, and to fight furiously in their cause against Spain. Of all the great officers of the Spanish Crown, the Viceroys.of Peru were the most magnificent, but they were beset with temp Quarterly Review,' No. 222. Peru. From 1821 to 1860 there have been twenty-one rulers of this country, who have assumed the various titles of Protectors, Presidents, Delegates, Dictators, and Supreme Chiefs. In Bolivia, which at first formed a portion of the state of Peru, and which is naturally a part of Peru, one President is reported to have quelled more than thirty revolutions in seven years. Contrasted with the chronic anarchy of Mexico and the habitual turbulence of Bolivia, Peru must be regarded as a well-regulated commonwealth. Of the thirty-seven years of its national life, twentyeight have been passed in peace. It has had seven years of civil dissension, but only two of foreign war. Peru was for a short time a member of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, but the federal principle of government has failed as completely in South as in North America. It has been shown to be com The pletely unsuited to countries of such vast ex- | for cattle and sheep, it is the seat of an adtent and imperfect civilisation. The disorga-vanced civilisation, of cities towering far nisation of Mexico is principally attributable above the region of clouds, and of villages to its unhappy form of government. Central perched on heights exceeding the summits of America, New Granada, and the Argentine the Jungfrau and the Wetterhorn.* Confederation, have all suffered and still suffer city of Puno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, from a similar cause. In extensive and is 12,874 feet above the level of the sea; La thinly-peopled regions, without roads, or very Paz, in Bolivia, is 12,192; the town of Potosi imperfectly provided with them, and where 13,350; and the celebrated mines of that there are but few educated men qualified to name 16,083. Rising far above even these discharge public duties, the local governments lofty regions are the great Eastern Andes in become the centres of unceasing conspiracies. a continuous chain from Cuzco to Bolivia, A vigorous central power is the condition of covered with perpetual snow. The geological national existence; without it there can be formation of a large portion of this vast neither permanence, solidity, nor cohesion. mountain-range consists, according to Mr. Peru employed the first years of its independ- Forbes, of fossiliferous sehists, micaceous and ence in endeavouring to annex Guayaquil, slightly ferruginous, with frequent veins of but failed. In the many ignoble civil con- quartz. The loftiest peaks in South America' tests to which the country has been a prey, belong to this formation. Illampu, or Sorata, the soldiery seldom knew for whom or for 24,812 feet high, Mr. Forbes states, is fossiliwhat they were fighting, and the rival armies ferous up to its summit. The city of Cuzco, more than once put an end to the contest by the ancient capital of Peru, the romantic fraternising with each other. The troops beauty of whose environs probably determined sometimes deserted their generals, and some- the choice of its site, is 11,380 feet above the times the generals their troops. A distin- level of the sea, or 2000 feet above the Great guished commander is said to have fled from St. Bernard, and although only 800 miles the field of battle while his battalions were from the Equator, enjoys a temperate and destill hotly engaged, and to have first heard of lightful climate. The great lake Titicaca, the victory they had gained many days after lying between the two mountain chains, the the event; and on another occasion the Cordillera or coast range, and the Eastern leaders of both armies 'retired' during the Andes, is one of the most remarkable features contest, the one into a wood, the other to the in Peru. It is 12,846 feet above the level of shelter of a British ship of war.* Leaving, the sea, 160 miles in length, from 50 to 80 however, the present political and social state miles in breadth, and 240 miles in circumof Peru for further remarks, we proceed to ference. Silver and copper abound in the notice some of the physical peculiarities and lofty mountains by which it is surrounded, moral features of the country. and its aspect is one of wild and gloomy grandeur. The only mode of navigating this lake is still the Indian balsa," a rude boat constructed of reeds tied together. The first map of the lake was made by Mr. J. B. Pentland, H. M. Consul-General in Upper Peru. The modern republic of Peru is about 1100 geographical miles in length and 240 in width, and is divided into three well-defined zones. First, the sandy waste on the coast, varying from 40 to 60 miles in width; secondly, the sierra, commencing at the foot of the Western Cordillera, and terminating at the base of the Eastern Andes; the third or most easterly portion of Peru is the montaña, which is but little known, and consists of vast impenetrable forests and alluvial plains, extending to the frontier of Brazil. From the coast the surface gradually rises to the region of paramos, or frozen plains; and from the eastern slopes of the Andes run those great rivers that pour their waters into the Amazon. The Andes, with their ramifications, have been roughly estimated to cover, in Peru, an area of 200,000 square miles; and the plateaux connected with them are, with the exception of Thibet, the most clevated table-land on the globe; but unlike Thibet, instead of merely affording pasture Markham's 'Cuzco and Lima,' p. 332. On the eastern slopes and spurs of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes grow those trees which supply one of the most valuable of known medicines. The cinchona, which produces the quinine of pharmacy, is found from 19° S. latitude to 10° N, following the almost semicircular curve of the Andes over an area of 1740 miles. Growing on the declivities and in the ravines of the mountains, these trees are the objects of eager search to the cascarilleros or bark-collectors of Bolivia and Peru, who pass the greater portion of their lives in the woods, but who, if they once lose themselves amidst the trackless forests, or provisions fail, are seldom heard of again. at these elevations in South America. 1861. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,' rot. blished in our Eastern possessions; young trees of all the valuable species are flourishing and multiplying in Southern India and in Ceylon. The vast and desolate ridges of the Cordillera, rising in regular progression, form the gigantic steps to those mountain masses, the Andes, the peaks of which have been found wholly inaccessible to the footsteps of man. Mr. Bollaert in 1856 ascended Tata Jachura, 17,000 feet above the sea, and from it he obtained a near view of the higher Andes, many of the summits of which he thinks must have been from 3000 to 6000 feet higher than the one on which he stood. The cloudless sky at the elevation which he reached was the colour of the deepest indigo, the icy peaks and serrated ridges showed a bold and well-defined outline, and the stars were as visible as at night. The passes which open into the Trans-Andean regions are so narrow and rugged, that Mr. Markham compares them to an attic staircase after an earthquake. The ravines and the sides of the hills, even at very high altitudes, are covered with wild flowers, many of which have been long naturalized in England, and form some of the chief attractions of our gardens. Lupins, fuchsias, blue and scarlet salvias, verbenas, and calceolarias, cover the valleys with their brilliant tints, and heliotropes load the air with their perfume. A large extent of the Andean region is, it appears, capable of cultivation, and might, as it formerly did, maintain tenfold its present population. No precipices daunt and scarcely any torrents | can stop them. The object of Mr. Markham's visit to the forests of the Peruvian Cordillera was to procure some of these trees for transplantation to India.* The export of bark from Peru has been gradually falling off in consequence of the improvident manner in which it is collected by the cascarilla dealers. The bark is often obtained by the most reckless and improvident destruction of the trees. Humboldt reported that in one district alone 25,000 cinchona trees were destroyed every year by barking, and allowing them to die by This was the more extraordinary since all that was required was to cut the trees down instead of barking them standing. If the trees are felled, a rapid growth of young wood immediately springs up, and in six years the saplings, in favourable regions, are ready to be felled again; but if left standing and deprived of their bark, myriads of insects penetrate the stem and soon complete their work of destruction. The importance of making an attempt to introduce the cinchona into our possessions, where it is most largely and beneficially used, was obvious. It had been urged by Mr. Pentland in 1838, and by the late Dr. Royle in 1839. An experiment had been tried by the Dutch in Java, but with imperfect success. The Neilgherry and Sylhet hills were pointed out by Dr. Royle as excellent localities for naturalizing the cinchona in India. The difficulties inseparable from the conveyance of many hundred trees from the slopes of the Andes to the ghauts of Southern India were not all that Mr. In descending the Eastern slopes of the Markham had to encounter. Popular feelingAndes, Mr. Markham was greatly impressed in Peru had been greatly excited by the at-by the extraordinary scenery. tempt to transport the cinchona to other countries, and it was only by great courage and tact that Mr. Markham was enabled to baffle the schemes that had been formed for interrupting his undertaking. He has reason to be satisfied with the complete success of his enterprise. The cinchona is now esta *The discovery of quinine is due to the French chemists Pelletier and Caventon, in 1820; they considered that a vegetable alkaloid analogous to morphine and strychnine existed in quinquina bark, and they afterwards discovered that the febrifugal principle was seated in two alkaloids, separate or together, in the different kinds of bark called quinine and cinchonine with the same virtues, which, however, were much more powerful in quinine-Markham's Travels, p. 17. 'As we continued the descent,' he says, 'the scenery increased in magnificence. The polished surfaces of the perpendicular cliffs glittered here and there with foaming torrents, some like thin lines of thread, others broader and breaking over rocks, others seeming to burst out of the fleecy clouds, while jagged black peaks glittering with streaks of snow pierced the mist which concealed their bases. After descending for some leagues through this glorious scenery, the path at length crossed a ridge and brought us to the crest of the deep and narrow ravine of Cuyo-cuyo. The path down the side of the gorge is very precipitous through a succession of andeneria, or terraced gardens, some abandoned and others planted with ocas (Oxalis tuberosa), barley, and potasides are thickly clothed with calceolarias, celtoes, the upper tiers from six to eight feet wide, but gradually becoming broader. Their walled there has been a steady diminution of mortality Since quinine has been more extensively used, among the European troops in Bengal; and whereas, in the year 1830, 366 was an average percent-sias, begonias, a large purple solanum, and a proage of mortality to cases treated, 1 per cent. may fusion of ferns; but it was not until reaching now be counted the average. Nor have the the little village in the bottom of the hollow that results among sepoys been dissimilar.'-'Quinine all the glories of the scene burst upon me. The and Antiperiodics in their Therapeutic Relations,' river of Sandia, which takes its rise at the head by John Macpherson, M.D. Calcutta, 1856. of the ravine, flows by the village of Cuyo-cuyo, bordered by ferns and wild flowers. It is faced near the village with fern-covered masonry, and is crossed by several stone bridges of a single arch. Almost immediately on either side the steep, precipitous mountains, lined, at least a hundred deep, with well-constructed andeneria, and faced with stone, rise up abruptly. In several places a cluster of cottages, built on one of the terraces, seemed almost to be hanging in the air. Above all, the dark rocks shoot up into snowy peaks, which stood out against the blue sky. A most lovely scene, but very sad, for the great majority of those carefully constructed terraces, eternal monuments of the beneficence of the Incas, are now abandoned. In the morning I rode down the beautiful gorge to the confluence of the rivers of Sandia and Huaecuyo. After this Junction the stream becomes a roaring torrent, dashing over huge rocks and descending rapidly down the ravine dark frowning mountains rear themselves up for thousands of feet, and end in fantastically-shaped peaks, some of them veiled by thin fleecy clouds. The vegetation rapidly increased in luxuriance towards Sandia. On both sides vast masses of with the descent. At first there were low shrubs, such as Baccharis odorata, Weinmannia fagaroides, &c., which gradually gave place to trees and large bushes, while all the way from Cuyo cuyo there were masses of ferns of many kinds, begonias, calceolarias, lupins, salvias, and celsias. Waterfalls streamed down the mountains in every direction, some in a white sheet of continuous foam for hundreds of feet, finally seeming to plunge into huge beds of ferns and flowers; some like driven spray; and in one place a fall of water could be seen between two peaks which seemed to fall into the clouds below. The descent from the summit of the pass over the Caravayan Andes to Sandia is very considerable, nearly 7000 feet in thirty miles, from an arctic to a subtropical climate. The height of Crucero is 12,980 feet, of the pass 13,600, of Cuyo-cuyo 10,510, and of Sandia 6930 feet above the sea.' The cinchona had remained a wild tree of the forest from the time of its discovery in 1638 until Mr. Markham succeeded in introducing it into India. The exportation of bark from Peru is now insignificant; the principal supplies are derived from Bolivia; but the seedlings and suckers, upwards of 500 in number, which Mr. Markham procured, he obtained from the province of Caravaya in Peru. Their usual companions are fern trees, Melastomaceæ, and arborescent passion flowers. A few only of the cinchonas yield valuable bark, the others are commercially worthless. They are never found nearer the Equator than 12° S. The C. Calisaya (the most valuable of the Peruvian bark trees) is, Mr. Markham says, by far the most beautiful tree of these forests. The leaves are of a dark rich green, smooth and shining, with crimson veins and a green petiole edged with red. The deliciously sweet bunches of flow ers are white, with rose-coloured lacinia edged with white marginal hairs. The greater number of the plants which Mr. Markham had succeeded in procuring unfortunately perished on their route to India vid England and the Red Sea, being unable to endure the heat to which they were exposed. Seeds and plants had, however, been obtained by the agents employed by him in other districts, and these, with some trees presented by the Dutch Government, have enabled him to establish plantations in the Neilgherry Hills, at Darjeeling, and in Ceylon. We may, therefore, reasonably expect ample supplies of the invaluable Peruvian bark from . the carefully tended cinchona districts of India, at a time when the forests of Peru and Bolivia will have probably ceased to yield any in consequence of the injudicious treatment to which they have been long exposed. The character of the Trans-Andean region of Peru is that of vast forests, frequented by a few Indian tribes, who shun the approach of civilised man, and resent any intrusion into their haunts by a flight of poisoned arrows. The aborigines of the valleys of the Eastern Andes are the most cruel, ill-favoured, and untameable of South American savages. They wander naked through the dense woods by tracks unknown to any but themselves, and are armed with bows and slings. They live on monkeys, birds, bananas, and fish. Of these people, called Chunchos, little is known. They are supposed to occupy a large extent of territory within the Brazilian Empire, and they are accused of cannibalism. Missionaries who have penetrated into their country affirm that there are three tribes, the Antes, the Chunchos, and the Cascibas, which war upon each other solely for the purpose of gratifying their passion for human flesh; but tales of cannibalism are seldom, supported by the testimony of eye-witnesses, and in countries where animal food is easily procurable they are seldom entitled to credit. The Chunchos are said to make an exception unknown in the usages of the other tribes-they never eat their female prisoners. This forbearance, however, does not arise from any superior humanity or from any chivalrous feeling, but from a confirmed belief that women are impure beings and were created for the torment of man, and that their flesh is to be eschewed as in the highest degree poisonous.* The richness of the vegetation of the Peruvian forests, particularly on the borders of the great tributaries of the Amazon, almost exceeds belief. Trees growing on the banks of the Purus reach the height of 290 feet, and |