Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 729, December 15, 1877

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Various. Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 729, December 15, 1877

A BUNCH OF KEYS

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

A CAST OF THE NET. THE STORY OF A DETECTIVE OFFICER

AN EXTRAORDINARY PROJECT

GORDON

NARCOTISM

LIFE IN A MILITARY PRISON. BY A PRISON CHAPLAIN

DESOLATE

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Peru recalls to every thoughtful student of history not only the half-barbaric splendour of the empire of the Incas, but the vanished prestige and glory of their Spanish conquerors. The gorgeous figure of Pizarro, the stately hidalgo, the successful captain, the ruthless soldier of fortune, meets us still at every step in the once rich Indian empire he won for Spain. On that low swampy mangrove-fringed stretch of coast, a tangled maze of vines and flowering creepers, the half-famished Castilian adventurer landed in 1524. And here, where the full tide of the Pacific rolls in upon the beach in columns of snowy foam, he, in 1535, founded Lima, the 'city of the kings.'

To examine the cities of the Incas, their ruined palaces, and other objects of note in this interesting region, was a task undertaken and carried out by Mr Squier, whose researches have been embodied in a volume entitled the Land of the Incas, the perusal of which enables us to offer the following items to our readers.

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In the fertile valley of Canete, amid rich sugar-plantations, Mr Squier found vast pyramidal buildings, rising stage upon stage, with broad flights of steps winding round them to the summits. While sketching amid a maze of these massive shattered adobe walls, our author was startled by seeing three men suddenly leap over a low wall into the vivid sunshine before him. 'God and peace be with you!' he said as calmly as he could, instinctively divining that his best cue was to appear as cool as possible. 'God and peace be with you!' responded the bandits, for such they were; and after a little bullying, an amicable parley ensued, which had for its object the acquisition of Mr Squier's breech-loading rifle, a weapon which kindled in the bosom of Rossi Arci, the robber chief, an ardent, but with all due deference to Mr Longfellow, a wasted affection, for he did not obtain it. Four weeks afterwards, Mr Squier saw the swollen disfigured corpse of this bandit captain exposed to public view in one of the principal streets of Lima.

At Truxillo our author came across a treasure-hunter, one Colonel La Rosa. This man spent his whole life in burrowing like a mole among the old ruins in search of buried gold, gems, silver goblets, or any other relic of antiquity which he could turn into money. Under his guidance, Mr Squier visited a great pyramid called the Temple of the Sun, and the extensive, interesting, and well preserved ruins of Grand Chimu. Here he found vast halls, the walls of which were covered with arabesques, and wide corridors from which spacious rooms diverged. The walls of these apartments were bright with vivid and delicate colours; and Colonel La Rosa shewed him where in the midst of them he had found a walled-up closet filled with vessels of gold and silver placed in regular layers one above the other, as if they had been hidden there in some dire emergency. Two vaults were also discovered filled with silver cups and goblets. The silver of which these vessels were composed was much alloyed with copper, and was so much oxidised that it had become exceedingly brittle. Mr Squier obtained possession of two of the cups. They have the appearance of being hammered out of a single piece of metal, are as thick as ordinary tin-plate, and are both adorned by the representation of a human face, with clearly cut features and a large aquiline nose.

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