s in Lima form but a small portion of the population, being
about 5000 in number. Among them are as many emigrants as natives. Most
of the former are from the mountainous districts, and but few are from
places on the coast. Their character is, of course, much modified by
continual intercourse with the whites; but I will endeavor to describe
them as they show themselves in their original purity, marking the
distinctions observable between the _Indio Costeno_ (the Coast
Indian), and the _Indio Serrano_ (the mountain Indian). The Indians in
Lima are active and industrious. Many of them are shopkeepers, and by
the integrity of their dealings they stand on a footing of good credit
with the great commercial houses. Those who are employed as servants
are less remarkable for industry and honesty. They are reserved and
suspicious; qualities especially observable when they have but
recently emigrated into Lima. They combine personal vanity with an
inconceivable degree of dirtiness. Their intellectual faculties are
far beneath those of the white Creoles, of whom they stand in a
degree of fear, which is not easily eradicated.

At a former period there existed in Lima a college exclusively for
noble-born Indians; and the eldest sons of the families descended
from the Incas, when they wished to study, were received at the
expense of the State into the College of San Carlos; but since the
declaration of independence, all the privileges enjoyed by the
Indians have been annulled.

The negroes in Lima form one-fifth part of the population. Their
number amounts to upwards of 10,000, of which 4800 are slaves. Though
an article in the Charter of Independence declares that "in Peru no
person is born a slave," yet the National Congress has on various
occasions thought fit to deviate from this principle. In Huaura it was
decreed that children born in slavery shall be free on attaining the
age of twenty-five, and the Congress of Huancayo prolonged the period
to fifty years. There are no new importations of negroes from Africa,
for an article in the Charter just mentioned sets forth that "every
person who may be brought, as a slave, from another country to Peru,
is free from the moment when he sets foot on the soil of that
republic." Accordingly, if a Peruvian take his slave with him on a
journey to Chile, and brings him back again, the slave may, on his
return, claim his freedom. The only exception to this rule refers to
runaway negroes, who,