Peru as It Is. Archibald Smith

him, after referring to the proper archives, the total number of bodies interred for the twenty years it had then been open to the public; and we are assured that the result corresponded closely with the rate expressed in our present statement. The archives of Beneficencia, to which the chaplain had recourse, are now lost or mislaid; but the account he furnished General La Mar, after these documents, then extant, were consulted, was published in some one of the periodicals of that day, which, however, we ourselves have not seen. It appears from our table of mortality, from 1826 to 1835, both years inclusive, that during the last four years the number of deaths has augmented in proportion to those that took place during the preceding six. The most obvious reason for which, that we can assign, is, that the late administrator of the cemetery and keeper of its register, to whose charge the books were left during the first six years, was not attentive (as his books yet testify) to enter the number of espuestos—in other words, corpses left secretly in exposed situations, as, for example, at the Pantheon, hospital, or convent gates; but his successor (Pasos) has, throughout the last four years specified, been very careful to insert a correct enumeration of these cast-away bodies, as the writer has had an opportunity of ascertaining in looking over the books of this obliging person, who lent his willing aid to procure the details whence are drawn the general results expressed in the table.

      The number of the espuestos is almost incredible, and shows the prevalency of great poverty; for it is but charitable to think that no one would thus cast away a child’s remains who was not deprived of the ordinary means of covering the expense of an humble interment: but it is said that, in this business, much fraud is committed by the parents of the deceased, who, to avoid paying the regular funeral dues, give the hearse-men a few reals for picking up the exposed bodies, and carrying them to the cemetery to be buried. For these considerations, it will not be unwarrantable to infer that the increase of deaths during the last four years on the table has not been so much in reality as in appearance, from the omission of duly registering the espuestos. Nor does it appear from a document now before us, titled, “Guia politica, eclesiastica, y militar del Peru,” by the celebrated and praiseworthy Dr. D. H. Unanue, published in the year 1793, that the gross amount of deaths has altered, in proportion to the existing population, to that extent which many persons would incline to believe, in consequence of the great increase of poverty and demoralization which have been experienced since that period. In 1793 the population was quoted in the “Guia” at 52,627, and the number of deaths at 2795, not including such as occurred among nuns or ecclesiastics; all of whom, conjointly, formed a large item in the population of Lima, and must have had a good many deaths among their number to increase the real bill of mortality.[5]

      It cannot be supposed either, that war had much share in swelling the Pantheon list of dead in these latter years, because, though civil broils were frequent since the year 1826, yet Lima itself was not the usual seat of conflict. Some troops there were always stationed in this city; but, should these be excluded from the estimate of the regular population of the place, still, however, any difference in the sum of mortality thus produced from soldiers dying in hospitals and registered at the cemetery would be, most likely, more than equalled by the default in the account of the espuestos, especially young children, whose remains were irregularly interred, and so not at all entered upon the books. And as for the Montonera troops, or others who met with violent death in or about town during the late noisy skirmishes, they were, upon the whole, too inconsiderable to merit much notice in this place, as appears very clearly from the various entries made in the register by Pasos, the present administrator and book-keeper of the cemetery.

      CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      Food, fruit, and water used in Lima.

      As the degree of health, and vigour of constitution, enjoyed by individuals, depend in a great measure upon the diet, as well as on the air they breathe, climate, and caste, we shall offer a few general observations on the dietetic habits of the Limenians.

      Besides maize, which is more generally cultivated than wheat, the latter being to a considerable extent an article of importation from Chili and other foreign parts, the staple food of the poor on the coast is derived from the camote and yuca, both of which roots are exceedingly nutritive and wholesome; but, in Lima, animal food is consumed in very large quantity. The quantity of poultry used here is incalculable; and a good reason for this is, that the sick, infirm, and convalescent—always exceedingly numerous in this capital, as well in public hospitals as in private houses—think themselves neglected in their diet if they have not, at least once a day, chicken or chicken soup. Geese and ducks are in low reputation as articles of aliment; but of pigeons and turkeys there is always a large supply in the daily market, held under sheds in convenient parts of the town. Fish is usually good and plentiful—the fishermen, by the way, furnishing the best specimen we have seen of a robust form in the Indian family.

      The number of fat pigs killed in the town has been, in the year 1835—on occasion of imposing, for the support of the colleges, a duty of four reals, or about two shillings a-head, on each pig—estimated considerably above twenty thousand yearly; and there is always so large a consumption of lard and fried pork, (“chicharones,”) that the trade of the “mantequero,” or lard and swine-dealer, is, after that of the baker and lottery-man, “suertero,” one of the most lucrative in the capital.

      From forty to fifty head of oxen, and from three to four hundred sheep, are slaughtered daily for the Lima market: the beef is very good; the mutton of inferior quality. We were told by one of the principal beef contractors that, early in the year 1836, the slaughter of oxen in Lima was reduced to thirty or thirty-five head daily; a decrease from the usual number which he ascribed to the poverty peculiar to that particular period of misrule, disabling many families from buying beef, and partly also to a new military order relating to the soldiers’ rations.

      Instead of his former allowance of meat, the soldier was now allowed two reals daily to provide for himself what food he pleased;—an injudicious alteration in his circumstances, for he either gave his ration-money for drink, or indulged his appetite in eating some unwholesome trash calculated to throw him too often on the sick-list.

      Pastry and sweet-meat criers are seen everywhere in the Lima streets; and a sort of cook-stand, abounding in fried pork and fish, is to be found at the corner of every square. This practice gives some insight into the dietetic habits of the vulgar; and such poor families of genteel pretensions as from necessity hire out their slaves, are seldom at the trouble or expense of cooking at home when they can more easily call in from the street what little they may satisfy themselves with.

      Masamorerias, or a sort of pap-shops, are very common in Lima. Of the sweet pap in vulgar use there are as many varieties as there are of meal and flour—such as peas, beans, rice, maize flour, arrow-root, starch—of which they have many varieties. Any of these boiled in water to a very soft consistence, with or without the addition of fruit or some vegetable acid, and sweetened exceedingly with sugar, molasses, or “chancaca,” (the latter, a coarse sort of brown sugar made up into cakes,) is what constitutes the great Limenian dish “masamora,” to which these sweet-mouthed people are as proverbially partial as the English are to roast-beef.

      However salutary in itself may be the quality of the more substantial food of such Limenians as can afford to live well and generously, yet most of their dishes are so sodden in lard, that the common fowl, the pigeon, turkey, and that excellent family dish the “puchero,” consisting of a variety of fruit and vegetables, with pieces of meat of different kinds and quality, all boiled and presented in one great piece of plate—are among the comparatively few which a simple palate can relish.

      Their soups, together with a great variety of vegetable dishes, are so heated with agi-pepper, that the coats of the stomach would indeed require to be well greased to protect them against the piquant effects of this popular condiment. Useful and even necessary as this agi is found to be by those Indians of the valleys who cultivate it around their doors, and whose diet is nearly all vegetable, yet in a climate like that of Lima, and in constitutions so delicate as those of its inhabitants confessedly are, it must prove injurious