Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/711

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PERU 679 ],er joi. dts. ith aili. an appeal to the supreme court at Lima. Castilla retired at the end of his term of office in 1862, and died in 1868. On 2d August 1868 Colonel Balta was elected president. Before his time the public debt had been moderate, amounting to 4,491,042, and the interest had been regularly paid since 1849. But Balta s govern ment increased it to 49,000,000, the payment of the interest of which from the ordinary revenues was simply impossible. The creditors, as security, had the whole of the guano and nitrate de posits assigned to them. With the vast sum thus raised President Balta commenced the execution of public works, principally rail roads on a gigantic scale. His period of office was signalized by the opening of an international exhibition at Lima. He was succeeded (2d August 1872) by Don Manuel Pardo, an honest and enlightened statesman, who did all in his power to retrieve the country from the financial difficulty into which it had been brought by the reckless policy of his predecessor, but the conditions were not capable of solution. He regulated the Chinese immigration to the coast-valleys, which, from 1860 to 1872, had amounted to 58,606. He paid great attention to statistics, promoted the advance of educa tion, and encouraged literature. He was the best president Peru has ever known, and his death in 1878 was a public calamity. On 2d August 1876 General Prado was elected, and his term of office saw the commencement of that calamity which has since overwhelmed his country. 1 On 5th April 1879 the republic of Chili declared war upon Peru, the alleged pretext being that Peru had made an offensive treaty, directed against Chili, with Bolivia, a country with which Chili had a dispute ; but the publication of the text of this treaty made known the fact that it was strictly defensive and contained no just cause of war. The true object of Chili was the conquest of the rich Peruvian province of Tarapaca, the appropriation of its valu able guano and nitrate deposits, and the spoliation of the rest of the Peruvian coast. After the capture of the "Huascar" off Point Angamos on 8th October 1879 by two Chilian ironclads and four other vessels, the Peruvian coast was at the mercy of the invaders, and Tara paca, surrounded by trackless deserts, yet open to the sea, though bravely defended for some time by the Peruvian army, fell into the hands of the enemy after the hotly-contested battle of Tarapaca on 17th November 1879. Chili then landed an army farther north, and on 26th May 1880 the battle of Tacna was fought, followed by the capture of the port of Arica on 7th June. In these combats the Peruvians lost 147 officers alone. The possession of the sea enabled the Chilian ships to desolate the whole coast ; and, the Peruvian army having been almost annihilated, only a force of volunteers and raw recruits could be assembled for the defence of the capital. After the two desperately-contested battles of Chorrillos and Miraflores on the 13th and 15th of January 1881, Lima was entered on the 17th, and was not evacuated by the invaders until 22d October 1883. During that period General Caceres, the hero of the defence, carried on a gallant but unequal struggle in the sierra. At last a provi sional Government, under General Iglesias, signed a treaty with the Chilians on 20th October 1883, by which the province of Tarapaca was ceded to the conquerors, Tacna and Arica were to be occupied by the Chilians for ten years, and then a vote by plebiscitum is to decide whether they are to belong to Peru or Chili ; and there are clauses respecting the sales of guano ; while all rights to the nitrate deposits, which are hypothecated to the creditors of Peru, have been appropriated by the Chilian conquerors. This most disastrous war has brought ruin and misery on the country, and has thrown Peru back for many years. The country contains the elements of recovery, but it will be a work of time. Bibliography. The history of Ynca civilization is to be found in works con temporaneous with the conquest or written in the succeeding century, in the native literature, and in the modern descriptions of ruins and other remains. The highest authority is Pedro de Cieza de Leon, whose Chronicle, which bears the stamp of impartiality, accuracy, and intelligence, was written within twenty years of the conquest (Eng. tr. of parts i. and ii. by the Hakluyt Society, 1864, 1883). The valuable writings of the learned lawyer Polo de Ondegardo, which discuss the polity and administrative rule of the Yncas, have been edited in Spanish, and one of his interesting reports has been translated and issued by the Hakluyt Society. Cristoval de Molina, the priest of the hospital of Cuzco, has described the rites, ceremonies, and ritual of the Yncas in great detail ; lie wrote in 1580, but his manuscript was not translated and issued (by the Hakluyt Society) until 1873. It has since been ably edited in Spanish, at Madrid. Miguel Balboa, who was in the country from 1566 to 1586, wrote an excellent historical work, which is translated into French in the series of M. Ternaux Compans. The Natural History of the Indies, by the Jesuit Jose de Acosta, is a work of considerable repute, first published in 1590. An English version, which originally appeared in 1604, was reprinted and edited for the Hakluyt Society in 1880. The famous commentaries of Garcilasso de la Vega were published in 1609 ; and the first part, relating to the Yncas, was trans lated and issued by the Hakluyt Society in 1869. The Suma y Narration de los Yncas, by Juan de Betanzos, is certainly one of the most valuable of the earlier authorities, as the author was an excellent scholar, well acquainted with the Ynca language, and a citizen of Cuzco. But most of his work is lost. The remainder was edited in Spanish by Senor Espada in 1880. The works of Avila, Arriaga, and Ramos give accounts of local superstitions and beliefs soon after the conquest. In the 17th century valuable labours on Ynca history were given out by Fernando Montesiuos, whose work was translated into French in the Ternaux Compans edition, and by a native named Juan de Santa Cruz Salcamayhua. The latter curious narrative has been edited in Spanish recently, and issued in a translated form by the Hakluyt Society. General accounts of Ynca civilization have been written by Robertson, Prescott, and Helps, none of whom, however, were acquainted with more than a portion of these author ities, or with the native languages, and none had been in the country. A valuable modern work on Peruvian antiquities is the Antiguedades Peruanas, by Don Mariano Rivero, published at^Vienna in 1851, and translated into Eng lish at New York. Markham s Cuzco and Lima (1855) contains the results of a personal visit to the coast and to the ruins in and round Cuzco. D Orbigny has described the ruins near Lake Titicaca ; but the best modern work treat ing of architectural remains throughout Peru, as they may be seen now, is E. G. Squier s Peru (1877). Perou et Bolivie, by Charles Wiener (1880), is also a valuable work. The language and literature of the Yncas have been treated of by Rivero, who gives a list of earlier grammars and vocabularies ; in the Quiehua grammar and dictionary, and the translation of the drama of Ollantay^iy Markham ; in Dr Von Tschudi s Kcchua Spruche (1853), and in his subsequent critical work published in 1875 ; and by Gavino Zegarra in the fourth volume of Collection Linguistique Americaine (1878). Don Vicente Lopez of Buenos Ayres has also written a learned work on the subject entitled liaces Aryennes. The career of Pizarro and the conquest of Peru are recounted in the general histories of Herrera and Gomara, and in Garcilasso de la Vega (part ii.). The best accounts of the first part of the conquest are by Francisco de Xeres, the conqueror s secretary, and by Hernando Pizarro. Both have been translated into English and issued by the Hakluyt Society. The narrative of Pedro Pizarro has only recently been edited at Madrid, and, as the author was one of the conquerors and an eye-witness, it is very important. Agustin de Zarate, who was employed in Peru very soon after the conquest, wrote a history which is valuable, especially the latter portion relating to events of which he was an eye-witness. The history of the Quito war by Cieza de Leon remained in manuscript until 1877, when it was admirably edited by Senor Espada. These authorities (excepting the last) were made use of by Robertson, Prescott, and Helps. But none of the three brings the narrative down to the conclusion of the civil wars in Peru and the settlement of the country. An account of the last rebellion, led by Francisco Hernandez Giron, and of the final settlement, is given by the Palencian Diego Fernandez in his history of Peru (Seville, 1571). There is no translation of this work. There is no history of the colonial period ; there are, however, abundant materials for it in the laws and ordinances, in the detailed reports of successive viceroys, in the histories of religious orders, and in innumerable memoirs, biographies, and reports both printed and in manuscript. Stevenson, in his narrative (3 vols., 1823), gives some account of the last years of viceregal government. A mass of documents relating to the great rebellion of the Ynca Tupac Amaru was published by Don Pedro de Angelis at Buenos Ayres in 183G. The work of Don Gregorio Funes, dean of Cordova, published in 1817, contains further information, and the diary of the governor of La Paz, while besieged by the Indians, will be found in Temple s Travels in Pent. There are narratives of the rebellion in the Voyage dans le nord de Bolivie by Weddell, and in the Travels in Peru and India (1862) by Markham. The events which led to the final achievement of Peruvian independence have been traced out in an interesting work by Don Benjamin Vicuna Mackenna, entitled La Historia de la Independencia del Peru, 1809-1819 (Lima, 1860). The events of the war of independence are narrated by the Spaniards Garcia Camba and Terrazas, and in English in the charming Memoirs of General Miller, and, as regards naval affairs, in the autobiography of the earl of Dundonald. Three volumes of the history of the republic have been published by Dr Don Paz Soldan. There are useful materials for history in the two anonymous volumes published in 1858 and signed " Pruvoneua," in the lives of Lamar by Villaran, of Salaverry by Bilbao, and in the history of the campaign of Yungay by Placencia. The works of Colonel Espinosa, especially his Diccionario liepub- licano, and of Dr Vijil are also important. Histories of the war between Peru and Chili have been hurriedly published by two Chilians, Diego Barros Arana and Vicuna Mackenna. The former is a mere partisan production of no value as a history. The latter, though prejudiced, is honestly written, and is useful as containing many original documents. Another history will be written by Paz Soldan ; and meanwhile narratives have been published in English by Markham, and in Italian by Caivano. The most valuable geographical and topographical works on Peru are by Peruvians, including the writings of Cosine Bueno and Unanue, articles in the Mercurio Peruano, and the works already mentioned of Dr Paz Soldan. Some papers by Haenke, Miller, Bollaert, Raimondi, Pentland, and Markham will be found in the Journals of the Royal Geographical Society. But the most import ant of all is the great official work by Don Antonio Raimondi, three volumes of which have already appeared, besides the same author s geographical account of the department of Ancachs. The natural history of Peru has been described in the German works of Dr Von Tschudi, and briefly in the English translation of his travels (1847). The first great work on Peruvian botany was the Flora Peruvlana by Riuz and Pavon, followed by the Chloris Andina of Dr Weddell, which forms two volumes of the great work of Castelnau. In his Quinologie Weddell describes the quinine-yielding chinchona trees of Peru and Bolivia, and further information on the chinchona genus, as well as on coca cultivation, Cuzco maize, and quinoa, will be found in Markham s Peruvian Bark (1880). Besides the works already mentioned, Dr A. Smith published a book giving useful information respecting the climate of Lima and other parts of Peru entitled Peru, as it is (1839) ; and there are some other books of travel of no special value. (C. R. M.) PERU, a city of the United States in La Salle county, Illinois, lies 68 miles above Peoria at the head of naviga tion on the Illinois river, is a station on the Chicago, Eock 1 The succession of presidents of Peru, since the establishment of peace by Castilla in 1844, has been as follows : 1845-51, Ramon Castilla; 1851-55, Josu Rufino Echenique ; 1855-62, Ramon Castilla ; 1862-63, Miguel San Roman (died 3d April 1863) ; 1863-65, Jose Antonio Pezet (vice-president); 1865-68, Mariano Ignacio Prado; Island, and Pacific Railroad, and is connected by a tramway (1 mile) with La Salle, the terminus of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Flour-mills, a plough-factory, and zinc- works are among the chief industrial establishments ; coal- 1868-72, Jose Balta ; 1872-76, Manuel Pardo ; 1876-79, Mariano Ignacio Prado ; 1879-81, Nicolas de Pierola (supreme chief) ; 1881 (12th March), Francisco Garcia Calderon ; 1883 (20th October), General Iglesias.