Incessant warfare and intestine broils, by keeping up continued agitation, are at this day as destructive and desolating to the aborigines of Peru, and to the general industry and prosperity of the country, as was formerly the compulsory system of working in the mines, and manufactories or “obrages,” under the Spanish conquerors. The factious and seditious spirit which has gone abroad in the republic is an excuse for a standing army, which in its turn becomes the fertile nursery, or, at least, frequent instrument of faction; and, what is worse, military licence is rapidly pervading all classes of society, and destroying the only true sources of population, which are domestic virtues, domestic habits, and simplicity of life. We shall dwell no longer on such causes, already too well known as principal sources of depopulation in Peru; but, before we quit the subject, it occurs to us to mention that during a litigation, in which the question at issue was to be partly determined by the evidence of tradition and ancient usage, a number of witnesses of the most advanced age in the Vale of Huanuco were called in to give their testimony, of whom several were from seventy to ninety years of age, and, with only one exception, in which the blindness of age came on in an European by birth, all of them were hale old people, and generally of Indian race. We would remark of these Indians, that although for centuries they have endured oppression with the mute meekness of the lamb bound for sacrifice, they are by no means dead to feelings of domestic tenderness, or insensible to the natural ties of kindred or of country, whence they are violently torn when led away as recruits. Wanderers from their native soil, wherever the public service or the will of an usurper leads, they brood over the loss of the genial freedom, simple habits, and peaceful enjoyments that once were their own, when they herded their flocks or cultivated their corn and pumpkins. In an hospital, on the coast, we have seen some of these poor fellows unable to speak a sentence of Spanish to the physician who prescribed for their relief; and, in a few extreme instances, despair sunk the powers of life, and a hopeless love of home exhausted their spirits. We have seen one very young lad thus affected who refused food and medicine, until in silent sorrow he expired, a victim to nostalgia, or a love of home, and a broken heart. These hapless beings, whose devotedness to early attachments and associations bespeaks the warmth and fidelity of their affections, though cherished under a cold and apparently a passionless exterior, we found to be indeed reserved, but sagacious; and, when not under any unusual excitement, their minds, though not cheerful, were serene. Their exterior mien always struck us as solemn, and even sad; but this may be partly the effect of the awfully grand and sublime scenery so familiar to their view, which imparts a solemn and contemplative turn to the thoughts of