In the shops, which line three sides of the grand square, are found almost all the elegant products of art and mechanical ingenuity. The long colonnades which protect them from the sun, are paved with smooth pebbles, and are sufficiently wide for several persons to walk abreast. Here you encounter, at all hours of the day, the indolent and the active, the grave and the gay of Lima. A more motley crowd in color and costume cannot well be conceived. The language of almost every nation on the globe throws its peculiar accents on the ear. The poorest have on them generally some article of luxury or refinement. The Spanish lady is seen in her saya y manto; the mestizo in her gayly-figured shawl, and the quadroon in her white-kid slippers.
Wednesday, April 1. Since the great earthquake of 1746, the houses in Lima have generally been confined to one story. A few families of wealth, who consulted their pride more than their personal safety, have run their dwellings a little higher. The walls are uniformly of sun-baked brick, and the roofs flat. The more pretending houses have an open court between the heavy gate and the main building. The front of the dwelling, with its fresco paintings, and gilded window-frames, glimmering through the evergreens which fill the court, has a fine effect; every thing looks inviting and cool, well suited to the climate—but a dash of snow would ruin its attractions.
Almost every house betrays the Moorish origin of its architecture in its veranda. This appendage resembles a long, capacious bird-cage, fastened to the wall; it is composed of lattice-work, and is painted green. Here the inmates can observe the passing crowd without being themselves seen. But all the buildings in Lima have about them the evidences of decay. Many of the mansions of the rich have passed into the hands of foreign merchants, and are used as counting-houses; while others have been converted into hotels and restaurants. Many families of distinction, after the revolution, returned to Spain; and not a few of those who remain are slowly exhausting the remnants of their once splendid fortunes. A Spaniard with the most diluted drop of noble blood in his veins, will about as soon starve as work. He regards labor as a degradation.
Thursday, April 2. The novelty in costume, which first strikes the stranger in Lima, is the saya y manto of the ladies. At a distance this dress looks like two petticoats; the one hanging down where all petticoats should hang, and the other drawn up over the head, as if lifted by a little whirlwind in mischief. But the lower garment proves to be a rich silk skirt, so plaited and arranged as to betray the swelling outline of the person and fall in wooing drapery around the limbs, while the upper one combines the advantages of the hood and mantle. It is fastened at the bottom within the band of the skirt, and falls over this cincture in a flowing wreath; while the top is gathered over the head and face, and so held by the hand within as to expose but one eye. The disguise is complete; no husband could recognise his own wife in such a dress.
The apology attempted for this dress is, that it enables a lady to go out in the morning, to mass or shopping, before she has made her toilet. The objections to it lie in the facilities which it lends to purposes of a very different character. It veils a love intrigue from all but the guilty. The jealous care of the husband, and the sleepless vigilance of the duenna, are alike baffled by its impenetrable folds. With the young it often paves the way to ruin and a life of crime. No virtuous community would tolerate its presence for a moment. It has been relinquished by some of the better families in Lima, and was once put under the ban of a legislative statute; but it still survives, and is still in extensive use. The Evil One, could such a thing be, might drop tears over its fall.
How the heart turns from such a picture as this, to that of one whose breathing features throw at this moment their unveiled sweetness on my eye. Born in other climes, she blooms here in all her native modesty and grace. There is an air about her, a delicacy, and a heart that speak the truthfulness of her nature, and her freedom from those affectations which vanity and a false taste induce. My Ariel, who loves these qualities in woman, has thrown into a few simple stanzas a faint outline of the original.
THE AMERICAN LADY.
She moves among us, but apart
From folly’s empty din;