In accordance with the old usage, which delighted to place a great city at some distance from its seaport, the spot chosen by Pizarro for his capital was about two leagues from the bay, whose waters were to be whitened with the sails of its commerce. From this point the plain descends westward to the sea-shore with a gentle slope. The city was laid out in the form of a semicircle or triangle, of which the Rimac formed the base. In order to secure as much shade as possible, the direction of the streets, instead of coinciding with that of the points of the compass, was made from northeast to southwest, so that both in the morning and the afternoon the shade of the buildings should fall upon the streets. Lying within twelve degrees of the equator, the buildings could of course cast no shadow, at any season, from the vertical noonday sun. These principal streets were crossed at right angles by others, so that each group of houses formed a quadrangle, all of nearly equal size. The general direction of the main streets nearly coinciding with the slope of the plain and the course of the Rimac, allowed the waters of the river to be conveyed through them in stone conduits, furnishing irrigation to the gardens, abundant spaces for which were left within the city. The growth of Lima (for the name given by Pizarro to the city was early laid aside in favor of its present appellation, derived, by a change of letters to which the Limanians are still much addicted, from the name of the river upon which it stands) was as rapid as that of a tropical plant. In half a century from its foundation it is said to have contained 100,000 inhabitants; a rate of increase then unexampled in the history of colonization, and offering a striking contrast to the slow and almost imperceptible growth of the cities planted a century later upon the Atlantic shores of North America, though outdone by the marvels wrought in our own days upon the Pacific coasts. Is their speedy rise to be followed by a like speedy decline? As the mother country declined, the prosperity of Lima in like manner waned, though it is impossible, among the contradictory statements made, to arrive at any certain conclusion as to the population at different periods. But the large number of ruinous and uninhabited buildings shows a decrease of population. It is asserted upon competent authority that during the first thirty years of the present century not a single new building was erected within the walls; and it is doubtful if within the succeeding twenty years, as many buildings have been added to the city.