During the viceroyalty, Trujillo was a walled city, of oval form, and about two leagues in circumference; the attacks of pirates led the Duke de la Palata, when viceroy of Peru, to provide this means of defence against invasion, the wall being built in 1617, of adobe, five feet thick and ten feet high, with a parapet above it and fifteen bastions. Only a few traces of this structure still remain, the increased population and industrial development having extended the city’s boundaries greatly beyond its former limits. The present population is about twenty thousand. The streets follow the usual plan of Spanish-built cities, cutting each other at right angles and having an average width of from forty to fifty feet. The houses are of the Spanish colonial style, in appearance resembling those of Lima more than any other Peruvian city. Everywhere one sees the little balconies encased in ornamental _rejas_ or barred frames; spacious _patios_, paved with ornamental tiles and adorned with plants and flowers,—presenting a most attractive appearance as seen from the street,—and solid walls and massive doors, telling of a period when durability was deemed as important as architectural beauty. The houses built nowadays are mere shells in comparison with the edifices constructed by the Spanish conquerors and their successors, when a wall had to be made several feet thick to be satisfactory, and a door must be large enough to admit a mounted horseman, and massive enough to resist a battering-ram. From the principal public square, called here, as elsewhere in Spanish-America, the Plaza de Armas, the most important public buildings may be seen, the Prefecture, municipal buildings and other government offices overlooking this central _paseo_. The plaza covers five acres and is ornamented with a garden of shrubs and flowers, in the midst of which stands a large stone fountain. Beautiful shade trees border the great square, making it an ideal place for a promenade, and here the social world congregates in the evening. In the vicinity of the plaza are several interesting old churches of the colonial period. When Pizarro founded the city, the chronicler of that event tells us, “the convents of Santo Domingo, San Francisco, and La Merced were the corner stones of that enterprise.” The convent of San Agustin, situated a block away from the plaza, was founded in 1558, and the first Jesuit college in 1627. The episcopal diocese of Trujillo was created in 1577. [Illustration: A CORRAL ON A SUGAR ESTATE, CHICAMA VALLEY.]