Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVII, October 1851

In the convent of San Francisco, is a small chapel containing an image of the Virgin, called del milagro, "of the miracle." It is related that during the great earthquake of 1630, this image, which then stood over the porch of the church looking toward the street, turned completely round, so as to face the high altar, and raised her hands in the attitude of supplication, and then implored mercy for the city, and thus saved it from utter destruction. A monk who conducted a recent traveler over the convent, related to him this miracle, and very naïvely expressed his wonder that the Madonna did not repeat her gracious interposition at the time of the earthquake of 1746, when it was no less needed.

The Oratorio de San Felipe Neri, formerly the convent of San Pedro, was the principal college of the Jesuits, who, at the time of their expulsion, possessed immense wealth. In 1773 a secret order was dispatched from the King of Spain, directing the viceroys to arrest all the Jesuits in the South American provinces, in a single night, and ship them to Spain. So secret was the order that the viceroy and those officers whose assistance was to be employed, were supposed to be the only ones who knew any thing of it. The viceregal council was summoned at 10 o'clock on the appointed night, and the royal order read to them. No one was allowed to leave the room, for fear that intelligence might be communicated to the Jesuits. At midnight the officers were sent to the convent to arrest the members of the order. The door was opened at the first summons, and the officer was conducted to the great hall of the convent, where all the brethren were assembled, each with a bag containing a few requisites for the voyage. So in all the other convents of the order. The same vessel which had conveyed the royal decree, had brought instructions from the Superior of the Jesuits in Madrid, who had gained intelligence of the secret, directed to the vicar-general at Lima, commanding him to be in readiness when the arrest should be made. The brethren were sent to Callao under a strong guard, and as soon as possible were put on shipboard. But when the eager officials made search for the immense wealth which was known to be in the treasury of the order in San Pedro, the keys of which were laid out in readiness for them in the apartment of the Superior, only a few thousand dollars were discovered. The rest had vanished like a vision. And to this day it has eluded the most vigilant search. An old negro, who was in the service of the convent, testified that for several nights he and his fellow-servants, with their eyes closely bandaged, were employed in conveying bags of treasure to the convent vaults, attended by two of the brethren of the order. He could give no clew to the place of concealment, except that he thought there was a subterranean spring near the spot.

The palace of the Inquisition stands upon what was formerly called the Plaza de la Inquisicion, now the Square of Independence (Plazuela de la Independencia). Upon this same square were also situated the University and the Hospital of La Caridad; whence it was sometimes styled the Square of the three Cardinal Virtues: the Inquisition typifying Faith; the University, Hope, and the Hospital, Charity. Few traces remain to denote the fearful uses to which the edifice of the Inquisition was devoted. It is now used in part as a storehouse for provisions, and in part as a prison. In the palmy days of Spanish dominion, Lima was the ecclesiastical metropolis of the whole Pacific coast of South America, and the Inquisition exercised its functions with a rigor hardly exceeded by that of Spain. When the Cortes abolished this tribunal in Spain and its dependencies, the building was thrown open to the populace, who speedily ransacked the apartments, and destroyed the implements of the Holy Office. Among those present was Stevenson, author of a standard work on South America, who has given a detailed account of the transaction. The customary array of racks, pillories, scourges, gags, thumbscrews, and other instruments of torture was found. The crucifix in the principal hall having been accidentally thrown down, it was discovered that the head was movable, and so arranged that a man concealed behind the curtains could cause it to move in token of assent or dissent. How many a trembling victim, overawed, confounded, and bewildered at seeing the movement of the lifeless head of the Redeemer, has confessed whatever the officials demanded, almost believing himself guilty of crimes he never committed. One article found was somewhat ludicrous. In one room was a large quantity of printed cotton handkerchiefs upon the centre of which was a pictorial representation of Religion, bearing a cross in one hand and a chalice in the other. The manufacturer had introduced these pious devices in the hope of facilitating the sale of his wares. But the Holy Office discovered gross impiety in the act of blowing the nose or spitting upon the symbol of the true faith; and to guard against temptation to such a profanation, had seized upon the whole consignment.

On the north side of the Plaza Mayor stands an unsightly edifice, now occupied by courts of justice and various government offices. This was formerly the palace of the Viceroys of Peru. The principal apartment bore the name of the Hall of the Viceroys. Here were arranged forty-four panels, each destined to receive the full-length portrait of a viceroy, as he entered upon his government, commencing with Pizarro. The last of these panels had been filled by the portrait of Pezuela, who held the office at the time when the insurrection broke out which severed Peru from the Spanish dominion. There was no room in the hall for the portrait of another viceroy. A similar coincidence is recorded in Venetian history. The effigy of the Doge who was in office at the time when the revolution took place which overthrew the Venetian oligarchy, filled the last of the niches which had been constructed to receive the effigies of the successive magistrates.

This is not the palace erected by Pizarro for himself. That stood on the opposite side of the square, and some remains of it are still shown in an obscure lane called the Mat-sellers' Alley. Here, on Sunday, the 26th of June, 1546, eleven and a half years from the time when the foundation of the City of the Kings was laid, its founder was assassinated. Pizarro had been warned that a plot was formed to assassinate him on his way to mass; but he took no further precaution against it than to absent himself from divine service that day. The conspirators then resolved to murder him in his own house. As they were crossing the Plaza one of them turned a little aside to avoid a pool of water. "What! afraid of wetting your feet, when you are to wade up to your knees in blood!" exclaimed the veteran Juan de Rada, the leader of the band. The dainty conspirator was ordered to return to his quarters as not worthy of a share in the enterprise. Pizarro was sitting with his friends after dinner, when the assassins rushed into the palace, through the open gate. The guests made their escape through the corridors, by climbing down into the gardens. Among them was Velasquez the Judge, who had boasted that Pizarro could receive no harm from traitors, while he "held in his hands the rod of justice." As Velasquez climbed down in making his escape, he needed both hands to aid his descent, and held his official wand in his mouth; thus verifying his boast, to the letter, if not in spirit. For a moment the assailants were held at bay by the attendants, but these were speedily dispatched. Pizarro, who had vainly attempted to assume his defensive armor, wrapping a cloak about his arm, sprang against the assassins, sword in hand, with the cry, "What ho, traitors! have ye come to kill me in mine own house?" Though more than three score years of age, he defended himself with desperate vigor, and had slain two of the assailants, when Rada, seizing one of his own comrades, flung him against Pizarro, who instantly ran him through the body. But while his weapon was thus entangled, Pizarro received a stab in the throat, and fell, and the swords of several of his enemies were at once sheathed in his body. He traced a cross with his finger in the blood upon the floor, and was in the act of bending down his head to kiss the symbol of his faith, when, with the name of "Jesu" upon his lips, he received a stroke which put an end to his life.

No place upon the globe enjoys a climate more equable than that of Lima. Not only are there no sudden and violent alternations of temperature, but the variations of the seasons are hardly known. Extremes of heat and cold are never experienced. The temperature at noon, in the shade in an open room, never rises above 80, and never falls below 60 degrees. The rays of a vertical sun are intercepted by a thin canopy of mist, called garuas, which for a considerable portion of the year hang over the city, resembling in appearance the canopy of smoke above a large town. The winds blow almost constantly from points between the southwest and the southeast. When they come from the former quarter they are cooled by passing over the immense expanse of the Pacific; when from the latter they have swept the vast forests toward Brazil and the frozen ranges of the Cordilleras. A northerly wind alone, which is of unfrequent occurrence, produces an oppressive sensation of heat. During the year, there are about 45 days when the sun is entirely unclouded, about 190 in which it is visible during no part of the day, and the remainder are usually cloudy in the morning, and clear in the afternoon. A shower of rain is a thing altogether unknown, but during February and March, a few large straggling drops occasionally fall about five o'clock in the afternoon. The garuas overhang the city almost without intermission from April to October. During June, July, and August there will not probably be a single unclouded day, and not more than three days in each month in which the sun can be seen at all. The gray canopy begins to lift in October, and gradually becomes thinner and thinner till April, when it again begins to gather. But this equable climate, apparently so desirable, is found to be productive of great physical lassitude, and to be unfavorable to health. It has been already noticed that the number of deaths constantly and greatly exceeds that of births. Among adults the most fatal disease is dysentery; then comes fever, usually intermittent; then consumption, inflammation of the lungs, and dropsy, the latter usually the result of intermittent fever.

Another fearful compensation for the mildness of the elements above the surface of the earth, is found in the frequency of subterranean disturbances. On an average, there are 45 shocks of earthquakes in the course of a year. These usually occur in the months from October to January, and again in May and June. But at intervals of from 40 to 60 years, the valley of the Rimac experiences an earthquake of far more desolating force, and by which Lima has several times been reduced to a heap of rubbish. The most destructive of these, since the European conquest were those of 1586, 1630, 1687, 1713, 1746, 1806 – two in each completed century; so that the experience of the past gives us every reason to anticipate that many years will not elapse before Lima will once more become a mass of ruins.

The most destructive of this regular series of great earthquakes was that of October 26, 1746. A little more than an hour before midnight, the earth began to tremble, and in three minutes from the time of the first shock, the city lay in ruins. Of more than 3000 houses, only 21 escaped entire. The towers of the Cathedral were overthrown. The bridge across the Rimac was almost the only public work which escaped, and of that one arch, upon which stood an equestrian statue of Philip V., was destroyed. But if Lima was sorely shattered, Callao was annihilated. The sea receded suddenly from the shore, and as suddenly rolled back with irresistible force, overwhelming the devoted city, with all its inhabitants, 5000 in number. Of these, it is popularly related, that only one escaped. A Spanish corvette which lay at anchor, was lifted sheer over the walls of the fortress, and deposited a full mile inshore, at a spot still designated by a cross erected to commemorate the fact. All the other vessels in the harbor were sunk. The modern town of Callao stands at the distance of two miles from the site of the old town, of which not a vestige remains. It is popularly affirmed that in a clear day the ruins of the old town may still be seen beneath the waves; but travelers, whose imagination is not keener than their vision, have vainly strained their sight to discover a trace of the lost city.

No familiarity with earthquakes is sufficient to do away with their terrors. The Limanian who has known them from childhood, no sooner feels the first shock, than he rushes from his apartment, with the cry of "misericordia" upon his trembling lips, no less than the foreigner who has never before witnessed these convulsive throes of nature. The moment a shock is felt the Cathedral bell begins to toll, all the belfries in Lima take up the sound, and summon the affrighted population to their devotions. A change has been wrought even in the form of church service, by the ever-present apprehension of these convulsions: the word "famine" being omitted and "earthquake" inserted among the evils from which deliverance is implored. The very architecture of Lima – its houses of a singly story – its plastered upper walls, its cane roofs, its towers and steeples of stuccoed wicker work – is a perpetual prayer against an evil which no human foresight can avoid, and no mortal power avert, and in respect to which the utmost that man can do, is in some degree to mitigate its consequences.

ALLY SOMERS. – A TALE OF THE COAST-GUARD

When I joined the Scorpion sloop of war, then (1810) on the West India station, there were a father and son among the crew whose names, as borne on the ship's books, were John Somers and John Alice Somers. The oddity in this country of giving a boy a female baptismal name had been no doubt jestingly remarked upon by those who were aware of it, but with the sailors the lad passed as Ally Somers. The father was approaching fifty, the son could not have been more than seventeen years of age. The elder Somers, who had attained to the rating of a boatswain, was a stern, hard, silent man, with a look as cold and clear as polished steel, and a cast-iron mouth, indicative of inflexible, indomitable firmness of will and resolution. The son, on the contrary, though somewhat resembling his father in outline of feature, had a mild, attractive, almost feminine aspect, and a slight graceful frame. I was not long in discovering that, obdurate and self-engrossed as the man appeared, the boy was really the idol-image in which his affections and his hopes were centred. His eye constantly followed the motions of the lad, and it appeared to be his unceasing aim and study to lighten the duties he had to perform, and to shield him from the rough usage to which youngsters in his position were generally subjected by the motley crews of those days. One day a strong instance in proof of this master-feeling occurred. Ally Somers some time previously, when on shore with a party dispatched to obtain a supply of water, had, during the temporary absence of the officer in command, been rather severely rope's-ended by one of the seamen for some trifling misconduct, and a few slight marks were left on the lad's back. The rage of the father, when informed of the circumstance, was extreme, and it was with difficulty that he was restrained from inflicting instant chastisement on the offender. An opportunity for partially wreaking his hoarded vengeance occurred about six weeks afterward, and it was eagerly embraced. The sailor who had ill-used young Somers was sentenced to receive two dozen lashes for drunkenness and insubordination. He was ordered to strip, placed at the gratings, and the punishment began. Somers the boatswain, iron or sour-tempered as he might be, was by no means harsh or cruel in his office, and his assistants, upon whom the revolting office of flogging usually devolved, influenced by him, were about the gentlest-handed boatswain's-mates I ever saw practice. On this occasion he was in another and a very different mood. Two blows only had been struck, when Somers, with an angry rebuke to the mate for not doing his duty, snatched the cat from his hand, and himself lashed the culprit with a ferocity so terribly effective, that Captain Boyle, a merciful and just officer, instantly remitted half the number of lashes, and the man was rescued from the unsparing hands of the vindictive boatswain.

Other instances of the intensity of affection glowing within the stern man's breast for his comparatively weak and delicate boy manifested themselves. Once in action, when the lad, during a tumultuous and murderous struggle in beating off a determined attempt to carry the sloop by boarding, chanced to stumble on the slippery deck, he was overtaken before he could recover himself, and involved in the fierce assault which at the forecastle was momently successful. I was myself hotly engaged in another part of the fight; but attention being suddenly called to the forepart of the ship by the enemy's triumphant shouts, I glanced round just in time to see the boatswain leap, with the yell and bound of a tiger, into the mêlée, and strike right and left with such tremendous ferocity and power as instantly to check the advancing rush. Our men promptly rallied, and the deck was in a few minutes cleared of every living foe that had recently profaned it. Ally Somers, who had received a rather severe flesh wound, and fainted from loss of blood, was instantly caught up by his father, and carried with headlong impatience below. When the surgeon, after a brief look at the hurt, said, "There is no harm done, Somers," the high-strung nerves of the boatswain gave way, and he fell back upon a locker, temporarily prostrate and insensible from sudden revulsion of feeling. Several times I was an unintentional auditor of scraps of conversation between the two while the lad was on the sick-list, from which I gathered that Ally was the sole issue of a marriage which had left bitter memories in the mind of the father; but whether arising from the early death of his wife, or other causes, I did not ascertain. Somers was, it appeared a native of the west of England, and it was quite evident had received a much better education than usually falls to individuals of his class.

At the close of the war Somers and his son were, with thousands of others, turned adrift from the royal service. Some months after my appointment to the command of the revenue-cutter, I chanced to meet the father in the village of Talton, about four miles out of Southampton, on the New Forest Road. He had, I found re-entered the navy, but chancing to receive a hurt by the falling of a heavy block on his right knee, had been invalided with a small pension, upon which he was now living at about a hundred yards from the spot where we had accidentally met. Ally, he informed me, was the skipper of a small craft, trading between Guernsey and Southampton. There was little change in the appearance of the man except that the crippled condition of his leg appeared to have had an effect the reverse of softening upon his stem and rugged aspect and temper. When paid off he was, I knew, entitled to a considerable sum in prize-money, the greater part of which he told me he had recently received.

About two months after this meeting with the father I fell in with the son. I was strolling at about eleven in the forenoon along the front of the Southampton custom-house, when my eye fell upon a young man in a seaman's dress, busily engaged with three others in loading a cart with bundles of laths which had been landed shortly before from a small vessel alongside the quay. It was Ally Somers sure enough; and so much improved in looks since I last saw him, that but for a certain air of fragility – inherited probably from his mother – he might have been pronounced a handsome fine young fellow. The laths, upward of two hundred bundles, which he was so busily assisting to cart, he had brought from Guernsey, and were a very common importation from that island: Guernsey possessing the right of sending its own produce customs free to England, a slight duty, only tantamount to what the foreign timber of which the laths were made would have been liable to, was levied upon them, and this was ascertained by the proper officer simply measuring the length and girth of the bundles. This had been done, and the laths marked as "passed." It struck me that the manner of Ally Somers was greatly flurried and excited, and when he saw me approaching, evidently with an intention to accost him, this agitation perceptibly increased. He turned deadly pale, and absolutely trembled with ill-concealed apprehension. He was somewhat re-assured by my frank salutation; and after a few common-place inquiries I walked away, evidently to his great relief, and he with his sailors continued their eager work of loading the cart. I could not help suspecting that something was wrong, though I could not make up my mind to verify the surmise his perturbed and hurried manner excited. Once in a skirmish on shore his father, the boatswain, had saved my life by sending a timely bullet through the head of a huge negro who held me for the moment at his mercy. Besides I might be wrong after all, and I had no right to presume that the officer who had passed the laths had not made a sufficient examination of them. The flurry of the young man might arise from physical weakness and the severe labor he was performing in such hot weather. These reasons, or more truly these excuses for doing nothing, were passing through my brain, when I observed the hasty approach of the collector of customs himself toward the cart, followed by several of his subordinates. Young Somers saw him as quickly as I did, and the young man's first impulse, it was quite plain, was flight. A thought, no doubt, of the hopelessness of such an attempt arrested his steps, and he stood quaking with terror by the side of the cart, his right hand grasping for support at one of the wheel-spokes.

"One of you lend me a knife," said the collector, addressing the officers of customs.

A knife was quickly opened and handed to him: he severed the strong cords which bound one of the bundles of laths together, and they flew asunder, disclosing a long tin tube of considerable diameter, closely rammed with tobacco! All the other bundles contained a similar deposit; and so large was the quantity of the heavily-taxed weed thus unexpectedly made lawful prize of, that a profit, I was assured, of not less than £500 or £600 would have been made by the audacious smuggler had he succeeded in his bold and ingenious attempt. The ends of the bundles had been filled up with short pieces of lath, so that, except by the process now adopted, it was impossible to detect that the cargo was not bonâ fide what it had been declared to be. The penalties to which Somers had rendered himself liable were immense, the vessel also was forfeited, and the unfortunate young man's liberty at the mercy of the crown. He looked the very picture of despair, and I felt assured that ruin, utter and complete, had fallen upon him.

He was led off in custody, and had gone some dozen paces when he stopped shortly, appeared to make some request to the officers by whom he was escorted, and then turning round, intimated by a supplicatory gesture that he wished to speak to me. I drew near, and at my request the officers fell back out of hearing. He was so utterly prostrated by the calamity by which he had been so suddenly overtaken, that he could not for several moments speak intelligibly. I felt a good deal concerned for so mere a boy, and one too so entirely unfitted by temperament and nerve to carry through such desperate enterprises, or bear up against their failure.

"This is a bad business," I said; "but the venture has not, I trust, been made with your own or your father's money?

"Every penny of it," he replied, in a dry, fainting voice, "was our own. Father lent me all his prize-money, and we are both miserable beggars."

"What in the name of madness could induce you to venture your all upon a single throw in so hazardous a game?"

"I will tell you," he went on hurriedly to say in the same feeble and trembling tone; "I am not fitted for a sea-life – not strong, not hardy enough. I longed for a quiet, peaceful home ashore. A hope of one offered itself. I made the acquaintance of Richard Sylvester, a miller near Ealing. He is a good man, but griping as far as money is concerned. I formed an attachment for his eldest daughter Maria; and he consented to our union, and to taking me as a partner in his business, if I could pay down five hundred pounds. I was too eager to wait long; besides I thought that perhaps – but it boots not to speak of that now; I set more than life upon this cast; I have lost, and am now bankrupt of resource or hope! Will you break this news to my father, and see – " His remaining firmness gave way as the thought he would have uttered struggled to his lips, and the meek hearted young man burst into tears, and wept piteously like a girl. A number of persons were collecting round us, and I gently urged him to walk on to the custom-house. A few minutes afterward I left him there, with a pro mise to comply with his request without delay.