Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 369, July 1846. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ to such inhuman treatment. In some respects the Peruvians appear to be perfect barbarians. Their favourite diversions are of the most cruel order; cock-fighting and bull-fights – but bull-fights, compared to which, those still in vogue in Spain are humane exhibitions. Peru is the only country in South America where this last amusement is kept up as a matter of regular occurrence. Bull-fighting in Spain may be considered cruel, but in Peru it becomes a mere torturing of beasts, without honour or credit to the men opposed to them, who are all negroes and zambos, the very dregs of the populace. There seems a total want of national character about the Peruvians. They are bad copies of the Spaniards, whose failings they imitate and out-herod till they become odious vices. Add to what has been already shown of their cruel and sensual propensities, the fact that their habitations, with the exception of the two rooms in which visits are received, bear more resemblance, for cleanliness and order, to stables than to human dwellings, and it will be acknowledged that not a little of the savage seems to have rubbed off upon the Peruvian.

      Ice is a necessary of life in Lima, and is brought from the Cordilleras, a distance of twenty-eight leagues. So essential in that ardent climate is this refreshment, that the lack of it for a few days is sufficient to cause a notable ferment among the people; and in all revolutions, therefore, the leaders cautiously abstain from applying the mules used for its carriage, to any other purpose. The Indians hew the ice out of the glaciers in lumps of six arrobas (150 pounds) each, and lower it from the mountains by ropes. Other Indians receive and carry it a couple of leagues to a depot, where it is packed upon mules. Two lumps form a mule load, and thirty of these loads are sent daily to Lima, where, by means of frequent relays, they arrive in eighteen or twenty hours. During the journey the ice loses about the third of its weight, and what remains is just sufficient to supply the city for a day. It is chiefly used in making ices, composed for the most part of milk or pine-apple juice.

      The want of good roads, and, in many directions, of any roads at all, renders carriage travelling in the neighbourhood of Lima exceedingly difficult and expensive. Only southwards from the city is it possible, at an enormous cost, to get to a distance of forty leagues. Sixty or eighty horses are driven by the side of the carriage, and every half hour fresh ones are harnessed, as the only means of getting the vehicle through the sand, which is more than a foot deep. A Peruvian, who was accustomed to send his wife every year on a visit to his plantation, at thirty-two leagues from Lima, told Dr Tschudi that the journey there and back cost him fourteen hundred dollars, or somewhere about three hundred pounds sterling. In former days, during the brilliant period of the Spanish domination, enormous sums were frequently given for carriages and mules; and the shoes of the latter, and tires of the wheels, were often of silver instead of iron. Even at the present day the Peruvians expend large sums upon the equipments of their horses, especially upon the stirrups, which are ponderous boxes carved in wood, and lavishly decorated with silver. A friend of Dr Tschudi's, a priest from the Sierra, had a pair made, the silver about which weighed forty pounds! The saddle and bridle were proportionably magnificent, and the value of the silver employed in the whole equipment was more than 1500 dollars. Spurs are of enormous size. According to the old usage they should contain three marks – a pound and a half – of silver, and be richly chased and ornamented. The rowels are one and a half to two inches in circumference. Besides the saddle, bridle, and stirrups above described, the unfortunate Peruvian horses are oppressed with sheepskin shabrack, saddle-bags, and various other appliances. "At first," says our traveller, "the Peruvian horse-trappings appear to a stranger both unwieldy and unserviceable; but he soon becomes convinced of their suitableness, and even finds them handsome." We should not, nor, we dare be sworn, do the horses, whose many good qualities certainly deserve a lighter load and better treatment than they appear to get. Dr Tschudi speaks highly of their endurance and speed, although their usual pace is an amble, at which, however, they will outstrip many horses at full gallop. One variety of this favourite pace, the paso portante, in which the two feet on the same side of the body are thrown forward at the same time, is particularly curious, and peculiar to the Peruvian horse. The giraffe is the only other animal that employs it. In Peru a horse is valued according to the goodness of his amble. Beauty of form is a secondary consideration, and the finest trotters are thought nothing of, but are sold cheap for carriage work. It is considered a serious defect, and greatly depreciates a horse's value, if he has the habit of flapping or lashing himself with his tail when spurred, or at any other time. As this habit is found incurable, the sinews of the tail are sometimes cut through, which, by crippling it, hinders the obnoxious flapping.

      The breaking of a Peruvian horse occupies two years. The horse-breakers are, for the most part, free negroes, of powerful build, and they understand their business perfectly, only that they ill-treat the animals too much, and thereby render them shy. They teach them all sorts of ambles and manège tricks, one of the latter consisting in the horse pirouetting upon his hind legs. This they do when at full gallop, on the slightest signal of the rider. A well-known Limeño, says Dr Tschudi, rode at full speed up to the city wall, which is scarcely nine feet broad, leaped upon it, and made his horse repeatedly perform this volte, the fore feet of the beast each time describing the arc of a circle beyond the edge of the wall. He performed this feat with every one of his horses. Further on in the book, the doctor relates an incident that occurred to himself, proving the more valuable qualities of these horses, their strength, courage, and endurance. "I had occasion to go from Huacho to Lima," he says, "and wished to accomplish this journey without halting. The distance is twenty-eight leagues, (at least eighty-four miles,) and I left Huacho at two in the afternoon, accompanied by a negro guide. At one in the morning we reached the river Pasamayo, which had been greatly swoln by the recent rains, and thundered along with a fearful uproar. Several travellers were bivouacked upon the shore, waiting for daylight, and perhaps for the subsiding of the waters. My negro shrugged his shoulders, and said he had never seen the river so high; and the travellers agreed with him, and denied the possibility of crossing. But I had no time to lose, and made up my mind to risk the passage on my good horse, who had often served me in similar dilemmas. I cautiously entered the stream, which, at each step, became deeper and stronger. My horse soon lost his footing, and, in spite of his violent efforts, was swept down by the force of the current, until we were both dashed against a rock in the middle of the river. Just then the moon became clouded, and I could no longer distinguish the group of trees on the opposite shore, which I had fixed upon to land at. Luckily my horse had again found a footing; I turned his head, and plunging into deep water, the noble beast swam back, with incredible strength, to the bank whence we had come. After some search I found a more favourable place, and my negro and I succeeded in crossing. Three travellers, who were anxious to do the same, but did not dare venture alone, called to us for assistance. I sent back the negro on my own horse, and one by one he brought them over. Seven times did the good steed achieve the dangerous passage, and then carried me without a halt to Lima, where we arrived at the hour of noon.

      Such horses as these are indeed valuable in a country where carriage roads there are none, or next to none. The mules, whose price varies according to their qualities, from 100 to 1000 dollars, also perform, in spite of indifferent usage, scanty care, and frequently poor nourishment, journeys of great length over the arid sandy plains of Peru. They are also amblers, and often as swift as the horses. Dr Tschudi tells us of a priest at Piura, who, when he had to read mass at a sea-port town, fourteen leagues from his residence, mounted, at six in the morning, a splendid mule belonging to him, and reached his destination at nine o'clock. At four in the afternoon he set off on his return, and was home by seven or half-past. The whole of the road, which led across a sandflat, was gone over at an amble. The priest refused enormous sums for this beast, which he would on no account sell. At last Salaverry, then president of Peru, heard of the mule's extraordinary swiftness, and sent an aide-de-camp to buy it. The officer met with a refusal; but no sooner had he turned his back, than the priest, who knew Salaverry's despotic and violent character, cut off his mule's ears and tail. As he had foreseen, so it happened. The next morning a sergeant made his appearance, bearing positive orders to take away the animal in dispute, with or without the owner's sanction. This was done; but when Salaverry saw the cropped condition of poor mulo, he swore all the oaths in the language, and sent him back again. The priest had attained his end, for he valued the beast less for his beauty than for his more solid qualities.

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