Steep barren hills rise like islands from the plain, which is divided, by straight mud-walls, into large green fields.

In these scarcely a tree grows excepting a few willows, and an occasional clump of bananas and of oranges.

The city of Lima is now in a wretched state of decay: the streets are nearly unpaved; and heaps of filth are piled up in all directions, where the black gallinazos, tame as poultry, pick up bits of carrion.

The houses have generally an upper story, built, on account of the earthquakes, of plastered woodwork; but some of the old ones, which are now used by several families, are immensely large, and would rival in suites of apartments the most magnificent in any place.

Lima, the City of the Kings, must formerly have been a splendid town.