patios are visible, many of them surrounded by little galleries, supported by turned and carved wooden pillars, whilst the fronts of some are enriched with projecting wooden balconies, after the Moorish style, only more substantially constructed, and having heavy tiled roofs and buttressed sides; these features, together with the strong doors studded with iron bosses and spikes, and the windows railed with solid bars, betray an Eastern origin. The city is full of ancient houses and palaces which have been converted into tenements, each doorway in the patio giving entrance to a separate household. The city has a population of about 140,000, and their wants are supplied by four market-places, where a large variety of meats, birds, fish, vegetables, and fruits are for sale. Electric cars run through the ancient streets, and brush past mule trains, with their heavy loads and picturesque trappings, whilst the milkwomen, who sit perched up between great shining tins slung across the backs of their horses, have hardly recovered from the shock of seeing motor-cars whir past them. The capital contains the oldest university, as well as the oldest cathedral in South America, and for over three centuries it has been the centre of learning and education. The development of the latter in many of its branches has been steady, if slow, and the establishment of the National Institute of Peru and the Museum is doing much to further the study of the anthropology and archæology of the country. In the museum, a handsome building lying at the extreme south of the city, a collection of Inca curios has been brought together. Mummies, swathed in vicuna cloth and highly decorated, looking like a row of “Aunt Sallies,” occupy a prominent place, and the well-preserved remains of bodies found in the nitrate fields are interesting, although a little gruesome. Ancient fabrics with archaic designs, probably hieroglyphics, pan-pipes, earthenware pots, gold ornaments, all telling of vanished civilisation. The costumes of the country since the conquest, bizarre and curious, whilst the finely wrought specimens of vicuna gloves and masks used by travellers crossing the cold heights of the mountains are very ingenious. The picture gallery contains many portraits of illustrious Peruvians and historical tableaux, but these are of more archæological than artistic value. The National Library, which has been established about a hundred years, contained originally many rare and valuable manuscripts and books, many of which had been [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, LIMA.]