91 
VIII 
PERU 
Recent archaeological finds warrant some 
authorities in claiming Peru to have been the 
home of a highly civilized and cultured people 
25,000 years before Christ. The race which 
inhabited the land then were the Chumus, the 
progenitors of the Incas, whom Pizarro found 
when his expedition arrived in Peru from 
Panama in 1532. The Incas had a socialistic 
form of government, were able engineers, 
good surgeons, noted agriculturists and really 
a wonderful people. The treatment of this 
docile and intellectual nation by the invading 
Spaniards is one of the darkest pages of his 
tory. 
Francisco Pizarro founded Lima, the capi 
tal of Peru, in 1535, was appointed by the 
Crown governor of the newly acquired terri