The aqueducts or canals, which run along all the principal streets in a direction from east to west, and give off branches for gardens and convents, &c. are, after they have passed the city, to some extent usefully distributed on fields between it and the sea-port. But, in general, agriculture, like every other branch of industry, is neglected since the revolution. The drains intended to convey the surplus water from the city over a gentle slope, to impart that moisture to the good soil which could not otherwise part with its nutritive properties, or support vegetation, are frequently in a ruinous condition. Thus, the water is suffered to stagnate in some parts, and run waste in others, without being applied to those beneficial purposes of tillage which should be the means of augmenting the health, population, and general resources of Lima and its environs. By the street-canals, are to be seen all day long the industrious vultures, (by far the most efficient agents of police,) gulping up the refuse cast into these receptacles of every sort of nuisance. When the water runs in small quantity, or is altogether stopped from neglect, the quantity of vegetable and animal deposit carelessly allowed to accumulate in these channels emits a profusion of gaseous volatile poison, more or less penetrating and pernicious, according to the season of the year and heat of the weather. The manure conveyed from the pens and stables, (which might be applied so as richly to repay the farmer’s toil, and be made to beautify at the same time that it enriched to an incalculable extent the adjacent plains,)—this manure, when not thrown into the canals, is conveyed to the broad walls of the picturesque city, and there heaped up day after day; or, if not thus disposed of, it is carried to the river’s brink, where it is suffered to accumulate into fermenting mounds of daily increasing size. Here it absorbs moisture, and generates miasmata that taint the air breathed by the inhabitants; and so their sloth is chastised. We are persuaded that their own culpable inattention to the cleanliness and salubrity of their capital contributes largely to entail upon them a greater proportion of disease and mortality than could at first sight be expected from the features of the climate. Those natives, indeed, who have passed a life of well-regulated habits, are said to attain a cheerful old age in Lima; and there are instances of a few individuals exceeding a hundred years of age, who preserve considerable bodily activity and mental vivacity. There was living, when we left Lima in 1836, an active little Franciscan friar, said to be considerably above a hundred. A Spanish gentleman of the name of Pellicer, very remarkable for the acuteness and vigour of his mental powers and general health, died in our own day, at the age of a hundred and two or three; and some other instances of this sort might be mentioned. These, however, are exceptions.