The negro creole is generally more athletic and robust than his African parents; he has no more virtues than they have, but he has commonly more vices; he seems to be more awake to revenge, and less timid of the consequences; he considers himself as better than the bozales, the name given to African slaves, and will rarely intermarry with them.
The mestiso is generally very strong, of a swarthy complexion, and but little beard; he is kind, affable and generous, and particularly inclined to mix in the society of white people; very serviceable, and something like the gallegos in Spain. In some parts of the interior of the country there are great numbers of mestisos; here their colour is whiter, and they have blue eyes and fair hair during childhood, but both become darker as they advance in years.
The mulatto is seldom so robust as his parents; he appears of a delicate constitution, and in his mental capacities is far superior to the negro; indeed when assisted by education he is not inferior to a white man. Fond of dress and parade, of a fiery imagination and inclined to talk, he is often eloquent, and very partial to poetry. Many mulattos in Lima obtain a good education by accompanying their young masters to school while children, and afterwards attending on them at college. It is very common at a public disputation in the university, to hear a mulatto in the gallery help a wrangler out with a syllogism: they are generally called palanganos, which is a local term, signifying a chatterer. Many of the surgeons here are mulattos, and frequently do great honour to themselves, and credit to their profession. Some of the females have agreeable countenances, and fine figures; they are witty and generous, and remarkably faithful in their connexions; they are very fond of dress, dancing, and public amusements, where they generally appear with their curly hair scarcely reaching to their shoulders, adorned with jessamine and other flowers. In the evening they will sometimes fill their hair with jessamine buds, which in the course of an hour will open, and present the appearance of a bushy powdered wig. They are often the confidential servants in rich families, and have the direction of all domestic concerns. Occasionally they are the duennas of the young ladies, and not unfrequently sisters to them; but a very just law decrees manumission to a female slave, if she can only prove that she has had a criminal connexion with her master.
The zambos are more robust than the mulattos, they are morose and stubborn, partaking very much of the character of the African negro, but prone to more vices. A greater number of robberies and murders are committed by this caste than by all the rest, except the chino, the worst mixed breed in existence:—he is cruel, revengeful, and unforgiving; very ugly, as if his soul were expressed in his features; lazy, stupid, and provoking. He is low in stature, and like the indian has little or no beard, but very harsh black hair, which is inclined to curl.
The quarteron and quinteron are often handsome, have good figures, a fair complexion, with blue eyes and light coloured hair; they are mild and obliging, but have not the intrepidity nor lively imagination of the mulatto.
I have not attributed drunkenness to any of the castes, for excepting that of the African negro it is not common: perhaps the example of the abstemious Spaniards is the cause of this sobriety.
The principal place of public amusement in Lima is the theatre, which is a small but commodious building; its figure is nearly a semicircle, having the stage for its diameter. The boxes, of which there are two rows, are all private, being separated from one another by slight partitions: they will each hold eight persons very comfortably. The pit is filled with benches, which have backs, and are most conveniently divided into seats by low arms. This part of the theatre exclusively belongs to the men; but no soldiers, sailors, or people of colour, without they be genteelly dressed, are admitted. Behind the pit and under the lower tier of boxes is an area for the lower classes of men; the gallery is the part appropriated to women of the lowest order. The Viceroy's box was on the left side of the stage, and the nearest to it: thus his Excellency gave his right side to no one; it was neatly fitted up, with a crimson velvet canopy over it, and hangings of the same colour on the outside, with a state chair, and others for his family, gentlemen in waiting, and pages. The box for the cabildo is in the centre, in the front of the stage. A guard of soldiers always attends on the nights of performance, which are Thursdays and Sundays, and every great festival, except during Lent, when the theatre is closed. The scenery is not despicable, and I have seen some good performers, both comic and tragic; but these are principally Spaniards.
The bull circus is a capacious building; with rooms in the lower parts, having a sufficient open space to witness the fight; over these are eight rows of seats, rising one above another; and behind them are the boxes, or rather galleries, where the principal spectators take their stations, and to which all the youth and beauty of Lima, in their richest attire, resort. The gallery for the Viceroy is opposite to the door where the bulls enter: it is large and handsome. The area is eighty yards in diameter, and in the centre is a safety station, formed by driving poles into the ground, at a sufficient distance from each other to allow a man to pass when he is closely pursued by a bull.
Scarcely any person speaks of the Spanish diversion of bull-fighting without pretending to be shocked; but the same person will dilate on a boxing-match with every symptom of delight. I have seen Englishmen shudder and sympathize with a horse wounded by a bull, who would have been delighted to have seen Spring "darken one of Langan's peepers." When we have nothing to correct at home let us find fault with our neighbours; for my own part, I am a friend to bull-fights, but an enemy to pugilistic homicide. If the amateurs of this "manly exercise" assert, that it teaches a man how to defend himself against another, I reply, that bull-fighting teaches him how to defend himself against a furious animal.
I shall not give a precise detail of this spectacle; but merely notice a few circumstances connected with it. At three o'clock, the circus, which holds nearly twenty thousand persons, is generally full. The spectators are of every colour—we have the European white, the American Indian, and the African negro, with all the shades produced by their mixture, and all are dressed in as fine attire as they can afford. One or two companies of soldiers attend, and after performing some fanciful evolutions in the arena, they take their stations, the band of military music being placed in front of the Viceroy's gallery. On the arrival of his excellency the trumpets sounded, the fighters, on foot and on horseback, handsomely dressed in pink and pale blue satin, with cloaks of the same stuff, began to parade the area; the first bull immediately entered, often very gaily caparisoned—his horns sheathed in silver, the body covered with a loose cloth of tissue, brocade, or satin, having on his back a silver filigree basket filled with artificial flowers or fireworks. He is at first baited by holding a cloak to him, at which he butts, when the baiter, drawing himself on one side, shakes it over his head as he passes: at a signal from one of the regidores, who presides as umpire, the man appointed kills the bull, either by running him through with a sword, receiving him on the point of a strong lance, or, crossing him when at full speed at a cloak presented to him, he stabs him behind the horns, and the ferocious animal experiences so sudden a check, that he frequently falls dead at the feet of the matador. Six horses drawing a small car immediately enter, and the horns of the dead bull being secured by hooks and a chain, he is dragged out, and another brought in. The annual fightings are on the eight Mondays next after Christmas, and the number of bulls killed each afternoon, from three to six o'clock, is generally sixteen or eighteen.