the building has no entrance, and
it presents the gloomy aspect of a jail. On the east a door opens into
a small yard or court, within which are the office and prison of the
police. A few long flag-staffs, fixed on the roof of the palace, do
not add to the beauty of the edifice. The interior of the building
corresponds with its outward appearance, being at once tasteless and
mean. The largest apartment formerly bore the name of the _Sala de los
Vireyes_. It is now used as a ball room when entertainments are given
by the government. Under the Spanish domination this room was hung
round with portraits of the viceroys, the size of life.[10] The series
of vice-regal portraits from Pizarro to Pezuela, forty-four in number,
completely filled the apartment at the time when the patriot army in
Lima revolted, and consequently the last viceroy, Don Jose de la
Serna, who owed his elevation to the military revolution, could not
have a place assigned for his portrait among those of his
predecessors.[11] The other apartments of the palace are small and
inelegant. Some of the rooms are used as government offices.

The present palace was, as far as I have been able to ascertain, built
about the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the great
earthquake of 1687 it was almost totally destroyed, but it was
subsequently restored. The palace which Don Francisco Pizarro built
for his own residence, stood, not on the site of the existing edifice,
but on the southern side of the Plaza, on the spot where now a narrow
dirty alley, called the _Callejon de petateros_, forms a communication
between the Plaza and the Silversmith's street (_Calle de Plateros_).
It was in that old palace that Juan de Herada, the friend and partisan
of Don Diego de Almagra, carried into effect his plot against
Pizarro. On the 26th of June, 1546, the viceroy was seated at table
with a party of his friends, when the insurgents surrounded the
palace, shouting "Death to the tyrants!" Pizarro, though warned of his
danger, had scarcely time to seize his sword. One of his principal
officers, Don Francisco de Chavez, was killed at the door of the
apartment, and several of the viceroy's friends and servants escaped
by the windows. Among others who attempted to save themselves in this
way was Pizarro's counsellor, Juan de Velasquez. Only on the previous
evening this man had been heard to declare that no one would be found
bold enough to join in an insurrection as long as he h