Peru in the Guano Age

CHAPTER I

Although Peru may boast of its Age of Guano, it has had its Golden Age. This was before any Spaniard had put his foot in the country, and when as yet it was called by quite another name. The name of Peru, which signifies nothing, arose by accident or mistake. It was first of all spelled Piru, no doubt from Biru, the native name of one of its rivers. Time and use, which establish so many things, have established Peru; and it is too late to think of disestablishing it for anything else: and though it is nothing to boast of, let Peru stand. The country had its Stone Age, and I have brought for the Cambridge antiquaries a fair collection of implements of that period, consisting of lancets, spear-heads, and heads for arrows, exquisitely wrought in flint, jasper, opal, chalcedony, and other stones. They were all found in the neighbourhood of the Pisagua river. It is to be regretted that no material evidence of equal tangibility is forthcoming of the Age of Gold. This is generally the result of comparison founded on historical criticism.

In the Golden Age Peru had —

I. A significant name, a well-ordered, fixed, and firm government, with hereditary rulers. Only one rebellion occurred in twelve reigns, and only two revolutions are recorded in the whole history of the Inca Empire.

II. The land was religiously cultivated.

III. There was a perfect system of irrigation, and water was made the servant and slave of man.

IV. The land was equally divided periodically between the Deity, the Inca, the nobles, and the people.

V. Strong municipal laws enforced, and an intelligent and vigorous administration carried out these laws, which provided for cleanliness, health, and order.

VI. Idleness was punished as a crime; work abounded for all; and no one could want, much less starve.

VII. No lawsuit could last longer, or its decision be delayed more, than five days.

VIII. Throughout the land the people everywhere were taught such industrial arts as were good and useful, and were also trained by a regular system of bodily exercises for purposes of health, and the defence of the nation.

IX. Every male at a certain age married, and took upon himself the duties of citizenship and the responsibilities of a manly life: he owned his own house and lived in it, and a portion of land fell to him every year, which was enlarged as his family increased.

X. Great public works were every year built which added to the strength and glory of the kingdom.

XI. Deleterious occupations or such as were injurious to health were prohibited.

XII. Gold was used for ornament, sacred vessels of the temple, and the service of the Inca in his palaces. There is a tradition that this precious metal signified in their tongue 'Tears of the Sun.' Whether this be an ancient or a modern tradition no one can tell us. It may be not more than three and a half centuries old.

XIII. A man ravishing a virgin was buried alive.

XIV. A man ravishing a virgin of the Sun, that is, one of the vestal virgins of the Temple, was burnt alive.

XV. It was accounted infamous for a man or woman to wear other people's clothes, or clothes that were in rags.

XVI. Roads and bridges were among the foremost public works which bound the vast country together.

XVII. Public granaries, for the storing of corn in case of emergency, were erected in all parts, and some very out-of-the-way parts of the kingdom.

XVIII. Woollen and cotton manufactures were brought to great perfection. Examples of these remain to this day and will bear comparison with those of our own time.

XIX. A thief suffered the loss of his eyes; and a creature committing the diabolical act of altering a water-course suffered death.

And to sum up, here is the true confession of Mancio Sierra Lejesama, one of the first Spanish Conquistadores of Peru, which confession he attached to his will made in the city of Cuzco on the 15th day of September, 1589, before one Geronimo Sanches de Quesada, escribano publico, and which has been preserved to us by Espinosa in his 'People's Dictionary,' art. 'Indio.'

'First of all,' says the dying Lejesama, 'before commencing my will I declare that I have much desired in all submission to acquaint His Catholic Majesty, the King Don Philip our Lord, seeing how Catholic and Christian he is, and how jealous for the service of God our Saviour, of what touches the discharge of my soul for the great part I took in the discovery, conquest, and peopling of these kingdoms, when we took them from those who were their masters, the Incas, who owned and ruled them as their own kingdoms, and put them under the royal crown. And His Catholic Majesty shall understand that the said Incas governed these kingdoms on such wise that in them all there was no thief or vicious person, nor an idle man, nor a bad or an adulterous woman, [if such there had been, be sure the Spaniard would have been the first to find it out,] nor were there allowed among them people of evil lives: men had their honest and profitable occupations, in all that pertained to mountain or mine, to the field, the forest, or the home, as in everything of use all was governed and divided after such sort that each one knew and held to his own without another interfering therewith: nor were lawsuits known among them: the affairs of war, although not few, interfered not with those of traffic, nor yet did these conflict with those of seed-time and harvest, or with other matters whatsoever. All things from the greater to the less had their order, concert, and good management. The Incas were dreaded, obeyed, and respected by their subjects, for the greatness of their capacity and the excellence of their rule. It was the same with the captains and governors of provinces. And as we found command, and strength, and force to rest in these, so had we to deprive them of these by the force of arms to subject them to, and press them into, the service of God our Lord, taking from them not only all command but their means of life also. And by the permission of God our Lord we were able to subject this kingdom of many people, and riches, and lords, making servants of them as now we see. I trust that His Majesty understands the motive which moves me to this relation, that it is for the purging of my conscience by the confession of my guilt. We have destroyed with our evil example people so well governed as these, who were so far from being inclined to wrongdoing or excess of any sort – both men and women – that an Indian with a hundred thousand dollars in gold and silver in his house, would leave it open, or would place a broom, or small stick across the threshold to signify that the owner was not within, and with that, as was their custom, no one would enter, nor take thence a single thing. When they saw us put doors to our houses, and locks on our doors, they understood that we were afraid of them, not that they would kill us, but that perhaps they might steal our things. When they saw that we had thieves among ourselves, and men who incited their wives and daughters to sin, they held us in low esteem. So great is the dissoluteness now among these natives, and their offences against God, owing to the evil example we have set them in all things, that from doing nothing bad they have all – or nearly all – been converted in our day into those who can do nothing good. This touches also His Majesty, who will take care that his conscience has no part in allowing these things to continue. With this I implore God to pardon me, Who has moved me to declare these matters, because I am the last to die of all the discoverers and conquistadores; for it is notorious that now there exists not one other of their number, but I only either in this kingdom or out of it, and with that I rest, having done all I am able for the discharge of my conscience.'

This might be called the epitaph of the Golden Age, written by one who knew it, and who helped to destroy it.

XX. Hospitality was a passion in that time, and what had been enjoined and practised as a national duty became a private virtue, procuring intense happiness in its exercise. Instances of this are on record that are not equalled in the history of any other people.

Lastly – and these characteristics of our Golden Age have been taken quite at random and as they have come to my recollection – the name by which the Incas most delighted themselves in being known was that of 'Lovers of the Poor.' In this Golden Age gunpowder was unknown, and the people for the most part were vegetarians. Animal food was eaten by the soldiery and the labouring people only at the great religious feasts. Fish, and the flesh of alpacas, were confined to the Incas and the nobles. This will account for many things which subsequently occurred, notably their easy conquest by the fire- and meat-eating Spaniard.

Let us now write down our comparisons of the Age of Guano with the Age of Gold.

I. The name and form of Government, it is true, are reduced to writing, but the Government is, and has been from the commencement of its Republican history, as unstable as water. On the close of the Guano Age things would appear to be improving: President Pardo has completed the whole term of his presidential life, and this is only the second instance of a Peruvian Republican President having done so. It would be difficult to reckon up the number of revolutions which have taken place in the Age of Manure.

II. The land is not cultivated: the things, for the most part, which are taken to market, are those which grow spontaneously, without art or industry. The people who supply the Lima market are chiefly Italians, while the greater part of the land is barren and unproductive. Potatoes and other vegetables, wheat and barley, flour, fruits, and beef, all come from Chile and Equador, but chiefly from the former.

III. The great water-courses and system of irrigation which marked the Golden Age are all broken up, and the fructifying water, once stored for the use and service of man, first became his master, and then his relentless tyrant.

IV. The land cannot be said to belong to any one. Certainly not to God. Even the Church, once a great proprietor and holder of slaves, is as lazy as the laziest drone in any known hive. Many of the large estates which flourished in the pre-Guano period have perished for lack of hands. The sugar plantations are exceptions for the present, but what will happen to them when the Chinese are all free is very uncertain. It may even be said to be a source of alarm to many thoughtful persons.

V. Of the municipal laws, which provide for cleanliness, health, and public order, although great progress has been made in Central Lima, all that need be said is, that it is a wonder the inhabitants have survived, and that those who were not killed in last year's revolution have not been carried off by a plague.

VI. Idleness among the upper classes, i.e. the whole white population, the descendants of Spain – those who supply the Army and Navy with officers, the Law with judges, the Church with bishops, and the rich daughters of sugar-boilers with husbands – idleness among these is the order of the day, and is punished by no one. Even the gods appear to take no notice of it, being itself a sort of god, so far as the number of his worshippers are concerned. To-morrow is the everlasting excuse for almost everybody, and yesterday has done nothing but light fools to dusty death; the to-morrow in which the useful and the good are to be done, never comes.

VII. Going to law is not only an infamous passion in this Guano Age, it is a means of living. There must be few if any people of substance in Peru who have not known the bitter curse of the law's delay. I have known lawsuits of the most vexatious and cruel nature, and which, in any country where civilisation is not a mere name, could never have been instituted, last, not five days, but five years, and, alas! even fifteen years. I have myself tasted the bitterness of the law in this land, and been very near being lodged in a loathsome jail at the instance of a miscreant who had it in his power to demand my presence before a bribe-gorged judge. I only escaped paying heavy toll or hateful imprisonment by my friends obtaining the removal of the judge. The second was a gross attempt at extortion, from which I was saved by accident. Both these lawsuits, of the basest sort, had their origin in an injustice which is ingrained in the complexion of the people. The captain and crew of the Talisman could bear testimony to the difference between the administration of law in the Golden Age and in the Age of Manure.

VIII. The education of the people has never been seriously attempted, except in carrying a flimsy old musket. The Indians, who form the great bulk of the population, do not vote. This would involve a slight cultivation of the Indian's intellect, and he does not know what might happen to further embitter his lot if he were to discover to his rulers that he had a mind. He is perhaps the slyest of animals – more sly than a fox, more obstinate than an English mule, and as timid as a squirrel.

IX. The marriage law is disgracefully abused and neglected for a country which boasts that its religion is that of the Holy Roman Apostolical. Civil marriage is illegal, and ecclesiastical marriage but little observed, except among the Estratocracia, the sugar-boilers, and such as mix in European society. The subject is one always difficult for a traveller to handle. To speak plainly and publicly of what has been acquired in private on this matter would justly provoke displeasure and disgust, and would not fail to be misrepresented or misunderstood. It may, however, be said, that if marriage be a public virtue, large numbers of the Peruvians of the Manure Age are not virtuous.

X. Of the great public works in Peru, the chief during this time has been a penitentiary, and a railway to the moon not yet finished, all built by foreigners and with English money. Emigration was one of the most important transactions of the Golden Age. There has been no serious attempt at promoting either emigration or immigration: the migration of the native races is absolutely beyond the control of the government.

XI. Of deleterious occupations and

XII. The use of gold, all that need be said is that each man in Peru does what he likes in his own eyes, and what is allowed in the most enlightened land under the sun: and in this regard she sins in the universal company of the wide world; but the comparison with the Golden Age is not on that account the less painful.

XIII. Incontinence is general, and the number of illegitimate children greater than those born in wedlock. The crime punishable by the terrible death awarded to it in the Golden Age has disappeared, for reasons which need not be further noticed.

XIV. The scandals of the Temple or the Church have likewise changed in their character. I have known a bishop of the Peruvian State Church, sworn to celibacy, whose illegitimate children were more numerous than the years of his life. I have known a parish priest who had living in several houses more than thirty children by several women. All Peruvian ecclesiastics are supposed to live celibate lives, bishops, priests, monks and nuns; and if they do not, the irregularity is winked at, nor is public morality shocked, however grossly and notoriously immoral the lives of these persons may be.

XV. The people for the most part are well dressed, but with the exception of the indigenous races, all wear ready-made clothing. The dresses of all classes are ill-made, costly, and vulgar. The coffin in which a Peruvian of the Guano Period is carried to his last home, is about the best made suit he ever wears, and the best fitting.

XVI. Of roads and bridges of the present day, it would be amusing to write if the recollection of those I have passed over was not too painful. No man not born in an Age of Manure, who has travelled a thousand miles in the interior of Peru, or for that matter a hundred leagues, will ever wish to repeat the experiment. Many of these roads are but ruins of roads, and carry the usual aspect of roads which lead to ruin.

XVII. There are no public granaries. People live from hand to mouth on what others grow for them and bring to them.

XVIII. There are no woollen manufactories. All the wool of the alpaca, the llama, and vicuña is sent to England to be made into things which the growers of the staple never see, much less wear. No Peruvian of any social standing has had the pluck or the sense to do anything towards extending the cultivation of alpaca wool. It is well known that the produce of this beautiful and docile animal might easily have been increased, just as the yield of merino wool has increased in Australia, if only brains and industry had been brought to bear upon the enterprise; and instead of a yearly income of a few thousand dollars being derived from this source of national wealth, there might have been, within the limits of the Age of Guano, a net annual income of £20,000,000. This incredible statement is made by one who passed four years of his life in studying the subject.

XIX. As for stealing – not that form of it which comes within the range of petty larceny, but the wider and more awful range of felony – it may be safely said, that nearly all public men have steeped themselves to the neck in this crime, and the common people take to it as easily and naturally as birds in a garden take to sweet berries. Nor is there sufficient justice in the country to stamp out the offence. If the punishment awarded to this crime in the Golden Age had been inflicted in the Age of Guano, there would be a very limited sale for spectacles in Lima or the cities of the Peruvian coast, or the towns and cities of the mountains.

XX. It is delightful to turn to something in Peru that merits unlimited praise. The Golden Age was noted for its hospitality, not only as a social virtue practised by the people among themselves, but as extended to strangers. Pizarro had not been so successful in his conquest of Peru if he had not been so hospitably treated by the noble lady who entertained him on his first visit to Tumbez. The exhortation of Huayna Capac to his subjects to receive the bearded men – whose advent he announced – as superior beings, has been interpreted as the cause of the Spaniards' sudden success in a country that was well defended as well by soldiers as numerous fortresses – 'Those words,' exclaimed an Inca noble some years afterwards, 'those last words of Inca Huayna Capac were our conquerors.' Among themselves it was the custom to eat their meals with open doors, and any passer by in need was welcomed in. Princesses and high-born ladies received visits from the mothers and daughters of the people, who provided the needle-work that was to occupy the time of the visit. Among English families of the better sort it is still a habit for a lady visitor to ask for some needle-work to do during her visit if it lasts more than a day – a custom that deserves to be enquired into. The prevalence of a similar custom in our Golden Age increases its importance. The traveller, especially if he be an Englishman, who has travelled through modern Peru, even in the Guano Age, who does not bear a lively recollection of kindness and open-hearted hospitality, is most certainly to be pitied, if not avoided. I am quite aware that such persons exist. I have myself travelled in the saddle more than two thousand miles on less than as many pence. The story of the impostor Arthur Orton at Melipilla is a case in point, and if the learned counsel who defended him is in need of a livelihood which cannot dispense with some of the elegances and charms of life, he cannot do better than follow the tracks of his client. I have lived in every kind of house, rancho, posta, cottage, quinta, and mansion, occupied by the various classes which make up the population of Peru. I have lived with archbishops and bishops, priests and monks, merchant princes, senators, judges, generals, miners, doctors, professional thieves, and widows, and I should be an ingrate indeed if I did not acknowledge with profound gratitude the kindness, oftentimes the affection, which I received, the liberality with which I was entertained, and the freedom I enjoyed. Here I am reminded of an incident which occurred to me in the south of Spain, and as it will suit a purpose it could not otherwise serve, let me relate it.