Death, famine, and battle, have moved here.

Ambition and revenge, hope and despair, patriotism and tyranny, tears, bloodshed, rebellion and murder, and woman's love and suf ferings and meek endurance and sacrifice; each has had its tale of reality, as having been enacted within the enclosures and apartments which I now overlooked from the tower on which I stood. But beyond it and me, the SEA— the incorruptible sea-still combed in to the beach, with its fresh and high and noisy breakers, as they dashed upon the shore; and once, of a time gone by, they came in with a surge that laid low a proud city, with a heave of an earthquake, and swept the city of the point-temples and dwellings, towers and castles-to à common ruin! And a little way out from the main beach lay the island of San Lorenzo, a desolate looking elevation, five hundred feet high, now sleeping on the bosom of the sea, in its solitude and isolation, as if regretting its dismemberment from the main shore, to which, it is said, it once was united; but now the line-ofbattle ship finds a passage between the island and the shore of the main. Within a short distance. of the new town, on the road to Lima, and seen from the castle, is a cross, which marks the traditionary spot to which the sea rolled a Spanish man-of-war in the earthquake which prostrated, in the same ingulfing of the earth and sea, the city of Callao. Here, in 1650, there were six hundred Spanish families resident-besides Indians, Mestizos, and slaves-four convents, and one house of Jesuits. But their dwellings, together with the castle, were submerged, as they sunk by the inheaving of the sea or the rocking of the earth, that received them to its chasms. Twenty-three ships were at anchor in the harbor, at the moment when the earthquake of 1746 occurred. Nineteen of their number were foundered as they were driven over the city, their anchors sweeping above the houses, and dragging parts of the submerged dwellings with

them, as they were dashed to pieces, far up on the Lima road. Four thousand persons perished!

It is the memory of such scenes, recorded in the history of the past, which makes one gaze, and muse as he gazes, on the field of land and water here before him. It matters not how changed is the view from what once it was, or how little of the past remains, in external appearances, to identify positions. The interest is intense, as the past is called up, and the cause and consequents of the catastrophes address the reason and the fancy. Another hour, and the same scene, in part, may be re-enacted. The same gathering forces of the subterranean elements beneath these volcanic regions of this west coast of South America, may again burst forth to gain their outlet, and ease the pressure of the internal earth. But we stand unmoved in the contemplation, though the possibility of the re-occurrence comes full to the conviction. Such is the habit of man. And yet no longer back than in 1828, one of our own frigates, lying where the Columbia was now anchored, suddenly rolled and pitched, as if she had been tossed from the bosom of a placid bay to mid ocean, to ride upon its heaviest billows. Part of Callao was shaken down; and Lima suffered in the shock which rendered the doors of most of the dwellings, which were shut, difficult to be opened, and those which were opened, incapable of being closed, without repair. And while our frigate was lying at her moorings off Valparaiso, a shock of an earthquake was felt, sufficiently heavy to throw the inhabitants of the town into a high state of commotion and alarm, many flying to the streets; and on board of ship, the sensation felt was like the jar produced by the veering out of fathoms on fathoms of a heavy iron cable.

LIMA.

LIMA, the capital of Peru, is some seven or nine miles from Callao. The drive is over a level road, possessing but little interest. Formerly the road was infested by highwaymen ; and life, in these South American countries, would seem to be but slightly valued, if all or half the stories of the road and the revolutions are true. Indeed, the land has been a bloody one, from the commencement of its occupation by the Spaniards. The half-way house between Callao and Lima has many a legend associated with it in connection with the salteadores-gentlemen of the road-who deem themselves at liberty to take possession of the superabundance of the peaceful traveler's purse, and his clothes besides, if said traveler is presumptuous enough to complain of the manner of the unceremonious salutation of these frank gentlemen. An officer of our ship informed me that once, on shore at Callao, he saw a person come into town, and, as he rode up to a group of idlers, narrated to them the manner with which he had been maltreated by one of these gentlemen of free habits, who are characterized for appropriating what belongs to another to themselves, while riding in from the capital.

"Let us take a canter after him," said an Englishman, who was among the listeners.

"Let us take a canter after him," added another of the group.

Three or four horsemen, in a few moments, were mounted and on their way to the spot described, being only about two miles distant from the town, on the Lima road. When they had come up to the place where the robbery had been committed, the highwayman sallied forth, and demanded a halt. The Englishman in advance put his hand beneath his pon

cho, the motive of which the salteadore suspected, and together the opponents drew their pistols. The Englishman's shot was in anticipation and true. The highwayman fell dead. The party unceremoniously threw him behind one of the riders, and brought him into town, after a half hour's absence. The body was stretched upon the pavement in Callao, with his hands crossed upon his breast. The passers by threw medias, or York sixpences at his side, that they might go to the priest for saying mass for the poor man's soul. The incident was scarcely spoken of, so little, apparently, is the sacrifice of a life here cared for by the people.

The entrance into the city of Lima from Callao, is by the avenue Alaméda de la Portada, which is lined with willows on the near approach to this city, which, in the grandiloquence of the language, and justly perhaps, in the real splendor and pomp of the olden viceroyalties, is called "the city of kings"-the city "with a thousand towers and a hundred gates "—" the city of the free”—and, as it was indeed, the field of Pizarro's dreams, and proud success, assassination, and burial.

THE CARNIVAL.

The Carnival, that Bacchanalia of the Romish church, was passing, on my arrival at Lima. As a consequence of this holiday season, many of the higher classes of the citizens had dispersed to different places from the capital, and not a few to Chorillos, a watering place of much resort for sea-bathing. The drive from Lima to this place is pleasant, and I followed thither the crowd. The place itself, aside of its attractions for bathing and the company, has little or nothing to interest the stranger. During the three days of the carnival, however, gambling is carried on

at this place, to an excess of excitement that keeps the players up until the morning breaks, while the tables are surrounded from 10 o'clock in the morning throughout the day. There was a monte table in one part of the public piazza, surrounded during the day by hundreds of Limanians, who had left the city to spend the holidays at Chorillos. One of the principal priests of the capital, now at the hotel, manifested a curiosity to learn from an American, with whom I had been conversing, who I was, by nation and profession. I was pleased with his genteel appearance and his willingness to serve me, at the capital. But I was told he had lost his money at the table yesterday, where he had been playing "for charity," as the term is, when the priests bet; and today, he had hoped to win back his purse. But it appeared, in the results of his risks, that his "Ave Marias" and "Hail Marys" did not avail him; and the charity-fund was rather severely lifted, if that is the term, in the present instance.

ASH-WEDNESDAY IN LIMA.

On my return to Lima, the scene in the city had changed. The closed doors were re-opened; the business of the city resumed; the streets, unlike the pestilence-stricken city in appearance for its desertion, as I left it a day or two before, now were reanimated with life by the passers by; the public plaza was filled with traffic, soldiers, and flowers; and the saya y manto, the dress so entirely characteristic of Lima and worn nowhere else in the world, was seen abroad, as the señoritas were on their walks through the streets, either for shopping at an early hour, or for saying their matins at their different churches. It was Ash-Wednesday; the morning of the first day of Lent, a season when there is more than usual attention to church duties, and the frequenting of