It Might Assuredly Have Produced Grapes In Great
Abundance, If The Discords Which Have Prevailed In This Country Had
Allowed The Colonists To Plant And Cultivate The Vine; As It Already Has
Several Thriving Vine Plants Which Have Grown From The Pips Of Dried
Raisins.
The neighbouring country produces all kinds of pot herbs and
garden vegetables usually cultivated in Spain, in great perfection and
abundance.
Indeed every thing conspires to assist cultivation at this
place, as every plantation has a canal from the river sufficiently large
for a mill-stream; and on the main river, the Spaniards have several
corn-mills. This city is universally reckoned the most salubrious and most
agreeable residence in all Peru; and its harbour is so convenient for
trade, that people come here from all parts of Peru to provide themselves
with necessaries of all kinds, bringing with them the gold and silver
which is so abundantly procured from the mines of the other provinces. For
these reasons, and because it is nearly central to Peru, it has been
chosen by his majesty for the residence of the royal court of audience, to
which the inhabitants of all Peru have to carry their law-suits, by which
means it is to be presumed that this place will in time become more
considerable and very populous. Lima at present, 1550, contains five
hundred houses; yet is larger than any city in Spain of fifteen hundred
houses, as the square in the centre of the town is very large, and all the
streets very wide, and because each house has a plot of eighty feet in
front by twice that in depth. The houses likewise are all of one storey,
as the country has no wood fit for joists or flooring-deals, every kind
which it produces becoming worm-eaten in three years. The houses, however,
are large and magnificent, and have many chambers and very convenient
apartments. The walls are built on both sides of brick, leaving a hollow
between of five feet, which is filled up with hard-rammed earth; in which
manner the apartments are carried up to a convenient height, and the
windows towards the street are raised considerably above the ground. The
stairs leading up are towards the interior court, and in the open air,
leading to galleries or corridors, which serve as passages to the several
apartments. The roofs are formed of some rough timbers, not even hewn
square, which are covered underneath by coloured matts like those of
Almeria, or painted canvas, serving as ceilings, to conceal these clumsy
joists: and the whole is covered over by way of roofing with branches of
trees with their leaves, which keep the rooms cool and effectually exclude
the rays of the sun. In this climate there is no call for any defence from
rain, which never falls in the plain of Peru.
One hundred and thirty leagues still farther south, is the city of
Villahermosa de Arequipa, containing about three hundred houses, in a very
healthy situation, abounding in provisions.
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