the Spauiards first visited Peru, they found the country under a well-regulated government, and inhabited by a nation which had made great progress in the arts of civilisation. The people were decently dressed, and lodged in comfortable houses. Their fields were well cultivated, and artificial cuts had been made to conduct the water of the small rivers to a considerable distance for the purposes of irrigatiou. They had extensive manufactures of earthenware and woollen and cotton cloth, and also thole made of copper. Even now the elegant forms of their utensil., made out of the hardest rock without the use of iron tools, excite admiration. The extensive ruins of palaces and buildings scattered over the country, and the remains of the great road which led from Quito to Cuzco, and thence south ward over the table-land of the valley of the Desaguadero, chow that the nation was far advanced in civilisation. This civilisation appears to have grown up in the nation itself, and not to have been derived from communication with other civilised people. The navigation of the Peruvians was limited to coasting from one small harbour to another in balsas. The difference in political institutions and in the usages of society between the Peruvians and Mexicans precludes the supposition of either of these two nations having received their civili sation from the other. Besides this, they were divided by savage tribes, which were sunk in the deepest barbarism. The Spaniards were surprised to find this state of things in Peru. When they had got possession of the country, they inquired into its history, and learned the following tradition. :— About three centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards, Mango Capao and Mama Ocollo appeared on the table-land of the Desaguadero. Them two personages, male and female, of majestic stature, appeared clothed in garments, and declared that they were children of the sun, and sent by their parent to reclaim the human race from its misery. The savage tribes submitted to the instruction of these beings of a divine origin, who taught them the first arts of civilisation, agriculture, and the manufacture of clothing. Mimeo Cepac organised a regular government, and formed hie subjects into four different ranks or classes, which had some slight resemblaoce to the castes of the Hinders, He also established many useful customs and laws, and founded the town of Cusco, which soon became the capital of an extensive empire, called the empire of the Incas (or lords) of Peru. lie and bits successors, being considered as the offspring of the divinity, exercised absolute and u000utrolled authority. His successors gradually extended their authority over the whole of the mountain region between the equator and 25' S. lat. When the Spaniards first entered Peru, the 12th monarch from the founder of the state, named flueyna Capac was said to be seated on the throne. He had violated the &Indent usage of the Incas, which forbado a monarch to marry a woman not a descendant of Mango Capso and Marna Ocollo. Him wife was a daughter of the vanquished king of Quito, Anil the son whom the had borne him, named Ataltelpa, was appointed him successor in that kingdom. The rest of his dominions he left to !foamier, his eldest son by a princess of the Inca race. This led to a civil war between the two princes, and when the oontcst was at its height, &Spanish fume entered the country under Franc:isle Pizarro In 1531.
Pizarro bad sailed in 1524 from PanamIt to a country lying farther south, which, according to the information collected from the natives, abounded in vedette metals. He sailed along the coast as far sunth as Cape Patina or Cape Aguja. Landing at Tumbez in the Bay of Guayaquil, the most northeru point of the present republic of Peru, he was struck with the advanced state of civilisation of the inhabit ants, and still more with the abundant>. of gold and silver vessels cod utensils. From this time be resolved on the conquest of the country. In 1531 he returned with a small force which he had procured from Spain, marched along the coast, and in 1532 built the town of St. Michael de Piers, the oldest Spanish settlement in Peru. The die trseted state of the country, caused by the oivil war, enabled the Spaniards to take possession of it without a battle; and though the Peruvians afterwards tried to renew the contest., they were wily defeated and compelled to submit to a foreign yoke. Pizarro built the towns of Plum, Truxillo, Lima, Arequipa, and Iluamanga : Cuzco was founded Ly Masco Capac.
The disorders which immediately followed the conquest nearly caused the loss of the country, a circnmstance which determined the court of Speiu to make Peru the chief seat, of the Spanish dominions in South America. Lima was chosen for the capital, and it soon role to such opulence that it way called the City of the Kings. The authority of Spain took sleeper root In Peru than in any other of her South American Colonies. In 17e0 the Peruvians took up arms against the Spaniards, under Typal, Amara, an Ines, bet failing to capture the town of La Psi. after • loog siege, they again submitted. When all the Spanish colonim began to rise against the mother country, after the year 1610, Porn remained quiet, and though some of the neigh bounng provinces had already expelled the Spanish armies, and others were attempting to do the same, the Spaniards remained in undisturbed possession of Peru until 1820, when General San Martin, after having szpellsd the Spaniards from Chili, entered Peru at the head of a victorious army, and soon obtained possessloo of Lima. The independ ence of Peru was declared on the 2ith of July, 1821, and San Martin was proclaimed protector of Peru. The Spanish viceroy Canters°, who had remained in possession of the 3lontalta, gradually recovered the Yalles. San Martin, having lost his popularity, resigned his authority into the Lands of the legislature on the 19th of August, 1822. On the 1st of September, Bolivar, the Columbian general, entered Lima, and continued the war with Canterac,bist, at first with doubtful success. In February, 1824, Bolivar was made dictator; and in
December of the same year the Spanish army, under Cantemc, was entirely defeated by Sucre, on the plains of Ayacucho, by which battle the authority of Spain in Peru and South America was annihi lated. In February, 1825, Bolivar had resigned the dictatorship, but he had previously contrived to separate the southern provinces from the northern, and to convert the former into a new republic, which adopted the name of Bolivia. Several different forms of government were tried within the six years following the declaration of independ ence. The constitution adopted by Bolivar in 1826 excited great discontent, and as Bolivar was soon afterwards obliged to go to Colum bia, where an insurrection had broken out and a civil war was on the point of commencing, a complete revolution took place in Peru, in January, 1327. The Bolivian constitution, or government, was abolished, and a new federal constitution, avowedly founded on that of the United States of North America, was framed and adopted, and may be considered as still in force. The national congreea, or supreme legislature, consists of two bodies, a senate and a house of represen tatives. The president, in whose hands the executive power is placed, is chosen for four years, and he cannot be re-elected. The depart ments have their own legislatures, and administer their own affairs, but the laws passed by these legislatures must be approved by the National Congress. The highest officers of the central government in the departments are the prefects and subprefeete. These persons, as well as the judges, are elected by the congress from three candidates, who are proposed by the provincial governments. The Roman Catholic religion alone can be publicly exercised. But though this is still the nominal constitution, Peru has been ever since its adoption almost continually distracted by parties struggling for power, and by civil ware and revolutions produced by these continual struggles, while the government has really been in the hands of the chief of the successful party. The most recent intelligence received from Peru (March, 1855) confirms the announcement of the euccessful termination of a revolution which had been in progress for about a year, and by which the late president, or dictator, General Echinique, has been driven from power. During the latter portion of the late president's supremacy, tho financial reputation of Peru had fallen into the lowest depth of discredit, but it has been announced that the new government will at ones endeavour to regain the confidence of the national creditors. The public debt consists of an iuternal debt of a very large but unnamed slim, and a foreign debt which was stated in 18-54 to amount to about 4,000,0001. The total revenue in 1850 was 2,189,000/. ; the expenditure was set down at 1,857,0001. By the con stitution no persons born in Peru, or brought into the country subse quent to the publication of the Charter of Independence, can be slaves, but this article of the charter has bccu frequently evaded, and its eversion has been formally sanctioned by the National Congress. The number of slave+ in Peru has been estimated at about 30,000. General Castellan, the present ruler of Peru, in January, 1855, issued a decree by which all slaves are to be liberated, except such as took up arms in the cause of Eehinique ; at the rime time he pledges the government to indemnify their owners within five years, (Ulloa, Voyage to South America ; Humboldt, Personal Narrative, ; Memoir. of General Miller ; Meyers, &LIE em die IVelt ; POppig, Heise in Chile, Peru, &c.; Smyth and Lowe, Narrative of a Journey from Lima to Para ; Narratire of the Surveying Voyages of the Adven ture and Beagle ; Darwin, Journal of Researches; Stevenson, Residence in Peru ; You Tschudi, Peru; and Untersuchungen fiber die Fauna Peruana ; Admiralty Sailing Directions for Sou% America ; Weddell, Voyage dons It Nord de la Bolirie, fie.; Seeman, Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Herald ; Pentland and Miller in the London Geographical Journal.) PER a delegation or province In the Papal States, is bounded N. by the Apennines, W. by Tuscany, S. by the provinces of Spoleto and Viterbo, and E. by those of Macerate and Spoleto. Its length from the Apennines, which border the valley of the Tiber above Cittk di Castello, down to the confluence of the Paella with the Tiber, is about 00 miles, and its breadth varies from 20 to 35 miles. The area is 1447 square miles. The population iu 1852 amounted to 222,926. The province of l'erugia is entirely In the basin of the Tiber. The Lake of Perugia (Trasimentm) lies near the borders of Tuscany ; its circumference is about 30 miles, the greatest width is about eight miles ; the depth is not morn than 30 feet. It contaiva three small islands. The lake is inclosed by hills on the north, east, and south, but the western shore is more open, merging into the wide plaiu of Gorton*. This lake is fed by no permaueut river, but by numerous springs which rise from the bottom of the bed ; it has no natural outlet, and In seasons of rain, when numerous streams run into It from the neighbouring hills, it used to overflow the banks, and sometimes the waters have entered the plpin of Cortona, and mixing with those of the Chianti, have flowed into the Arno. In order to prevent the mischief occasioned by these floods, a tunnel was cut in the 15th century by Breccia da Montane, lord of Perugia, through a hill on the south-east bank opposite the southern island of Polrese. The water on issuing out of the tunnel flows lute a canal, sets in motion several mills, and after a course of about two miles enters the river Caine, an affluent of the restore, which is a feeder of the Tiber. The mouth of the emissary is above the ordinary or summer level, and the water tows into it only in the winter or after heavy rains.. The emissary was repaired by order of Pope Clement V111. in 1602-3.