Deck and port /

by Walter Colton

Close on this follows the palta-pear, with its large central stone resembling that of the peach. This fruit, which is protected by a hard, thin rind, has the consistence of thick cream, and, with salt sprinkled on it, is used upon bread as an excellent substitute for butter. I do not wonder that the epicurean monk, in his desire to lift the flagging imaginations of his hearers to the fruitions of the better land, represents the chirimoya, the granadilla, and palta, as nodding over its crystal streams. They have that which never entered even the imagination of Mahomet, when he spread the verdant lawns and wove the ambrosial bowers of his pictured heaven.

Wednesday, May 6. The therapeutics of the Limanians are as peculiar, when applied to their tempers, as their bodies. They never drink cold water when angry, from an apprehension that it conduces to hepatic diseases. In their opinion it chills and contracts the biliary excretories, prevents a natural flow of the bile, and leads to congestion. The physician often attributes the death of his patient to this fatal indiscretion. He would sooner give an angry man alcohol, than a glass of iced-water.

The old Spanish families, who were swept away by the Revolution, resembled the Mussulman in many of their characteristic habits. They were remarkable for their commercial probity, their love of ease, their hatred of innovation, their intolerance of the slightest indignity, their pride of lineage, and their indulgence in sensual gratifications. Their dwellings were stately castles, where the indolent lounged, the gay revelled, the sad were beguiled of their sorrows, and the poor forgot their poverty. But they have passed away, save a few who remain, like the sturdy trees of a forest, which the hurricane hath swept. The few who remain are rarely engaged in any important enterprises. What capital they have is often locked up, where they forego the interest for the safety of the principal. There is one old Spaniard who has now, and has had for years, eight hundred thousand dollars packed away in the vaults of a large commercial house here. An interest of twenty per cent. would not draw it from its stronghold. Revolution and rapacity have wrecked his confidence; and he is in this respect only one among thousands. The result is, the commerce of Peru has fallen mostly into the hands of the English and Americans. Their daring spirit will carry it on, though revolutions succeed each other strong and fast as the breaking waves of ocean. But the storm is past, and the great deep is rocking itself to rest.

The Spanish lady has but little book-knowledge, but a most observant sagacity. She has no acquirements in letters, but reads character as by intuition. She never essays an argument, and is never at a loss for a pertinent reply. She is ardent in her temperament, and yet rarely loses her equanimity. She is alive to adulation, and is never overawed by menace. She is punctilious in all the forms of religion, and persevering in all the perils of an intrigue. Her mornings are spent with her confessor, her evenings with her lover.

Masses for the repose of the soul are inculcated by the clergy as an indispensable religious duty. They are a source of vast revenue to the curate, and often involve the relatives of the deceased in ruinous expenses. It is considered worse than cruel to leave in purgatory the soul of a relative, which might be relieved through the efficacy of the mass. The dictates of religion and nature are therefore both enlisted in securing a punctual performance of this pious obligation. It is an expensive duty, and the burden often falls where it is least able to be borne.

The poor widow, believing, as she is taught, that masses can relieve the condition of her deceased child, mitigate its sufferings, and hasten its transit from purifying flames to perfect bliss, parts with her last shilling, as well she may, and even sells her mourning weeds for this purpose. The author of “Three years in the Pacific” says:—“I saw in Pisco an Indian boy, who had been sold by the curate in one of the interior provinces, to pay for the requisite number of masses for the rest of his father’s soul!” There is a company in Lima, instituted under the sanction of the archbishop, which engages, for the consideration of a real a week from any poor family, to purchase, at the death of a member of the household, a sufficient number of masses to liberate the deceased from the pains of purgatory. This company has a hundred applicants where the life-insurance corporation has one. Masses for the dead, claiming as they do to reach the condition of the departed soul, cast into insignificance every thing this side of their object, and leave nothing for a superstitious faith to desire beyond it. The human imagination cannot conceive of a more tremendous ecclesiastical engine.

Thursday, May 7. The pleasures of our visit to Lima were not a little enhanced by the arrangements and hospitalities of Commodore Stockton. He took ample apartments in the elegant hotel which opens on the grand plaza, where he had his own table and attendants. We met here not only the officers of the Congress, but the first gentlemen in Lima. These entertainments were free of ostentation, and that parade in which the heart is lost in the forms of etiquette, and were on a scale in keeping with the rank and ample means of the individual who dispensed them. They have had the effect not only to strengthen friendship among ourselves, but to win the good opinion and favor of those whose prominent position here gives them an influence over the character of our foreign relations.

The gentlemen connected with the Alsop House have also contributed largely to the pleasures of our visit here. We shall long remember in connection with this hospitable mansion the kind attention of Mr. McCall, Mr. Foster, and our worthy Consul. Their liberality, ample means, and sterling integrity are a rock on which the American name may safely repose at Lima.

The time had come for me to leave Lima, and take up my quarters again on board the Congress. I took a seat in the diligence just starting for Callao, and which was already pretty full with other passengers. But I had the advantage of not requiring a great deal of room, and so squeezed in. Opposite to me sat a fat Peruvian lady, whose huge fan, which threatened my nose as much as her broad face, was in a constant dash to create a breath of air, while her flesh shook at every jar as if it would break from its moorings. Two lap-dogs, one under either flank, pushed out their panting noses with many ineffectual attempts to extricate themselves from the heat of their smothered condition; but were rebuffed by a slap from the lady’s hand, which was too fat to hurt them but for the massive rings on her fingers, in which flashed gems enough to stud a sultan’s snuff-box. She wore no bonnet or broad gipsy hat to protect her from the rays of the sun, which broke through the open crevices in the roof of the diligence; and indeed she needed none, for the heavy puffs of her cigar rolled up there, and hung over her head in a thick floating cloud.

On one side of me sat an officer of the Peruvian army, in full uniform. His chapeau, tasselled, plumed, and covered with gold lace, rested on his knees, and exposed the heavy black wig, in which each hair had been made to take its particular place. His thick coat, with its massive embroidery, was buttoned, notwithstanding the heat, so close over his chest and up to the neck, that it seemed to dispute with his stock the office of supporting the chin. His pantaloons, down which flowed a broad stream of gold lace, were straightened and stretched in every thread by the short straps under the boot, which might have lifted his feet from the floor, but for the ponderous spurs which projected far behind the heel in a shaft, at the end of which rattled a roller in the shape of a circular saw. Not a smile or emotion of any kind once disturbed the fixedness of his bronzed features. He sat crank and motionless as a statue, save the bony hand which now and then gave another twist to his moustache, which curled its horns into the corners of his mouth. But for this slight motion, he might have been taken for one of those old heroes whom Egyptian art more than three thousand years ago embalmed into immortality.