melted into ingots, and distributed to Lima and the world at large. On the night of the 15th and 16th of December in that year the wealthy city was fired by the Carangas and the Suchimanis, and all the inhabitants slain with arrows or clubs. The first lords of the soil had resumed their rights.

When the news of the event was brought to Lima, the viceroy of the period, Antonio Amat, swore on a piece of the true cross to exterminate every Indian in Peru. It is to the persuasions of his favorite, Mariquita Gallegas, that the preservation of the native tribes from a bloody extirpation is due. This woman, La Perichola, whose caricatured likeness we see in the most agreeable of Offenbach's operas, and whose deeds of mercy and edifying end in a convent entitle her to some charitable consideration, persuaded her royal lover to operate on the natives with missionaries and teachers rather than with fire and sword. Antonio Amat yielded, and the Indians have survived.