Seen o’er the twilight’s misty haze,
Climbing the verge of heaven.
Friday, April 3. Slavery is near its extinction in Peru. No one can be born a slave under its new constitution, and the introduction of slaves from other provinces or states is prohibited under penalties which involve a loss of citizenship for life. Any slave can obtain his freedom for a few hundred dollars, or by taking refuge among the Indians who inhabit the glens of the Cordilleras. It is unlawful for any master to strike his slaves. If they misbehave, he can increase their task, but cannot inflict corporal chastisement.
Nothing puzzles the stranger here so much as the singular mixture of races. The Spaniard, the Indian, and the African run together like the hues of the dying dolphin. It is impossible to tell where one color ceases and the other begins. Even in the same family, complexions frequently differ wide enough to embrace both extremes. The African in other countries can be traced; but here, after a few generations, he becomes so bleached by the climate that you lose sight of his origin. Even his hair, that almost infallible indication, straightens out into the texture of the European’s. Add to this the results of intermarriage, and you may well be in doubt where to class him.
Some of the best-looking females in Lima are of this description. They resemble in hue and form the Circassian, and would be regarded at Constantinople as extremely beautiful. They are soft and engaging in their manners, amiable in their dispositions, excel in music, and are often married to gentlemen of distinction and wealth.
Saturday, April 4. The college boys in Lima look like little military captains. They strut about in cocked hats and laced coats; the sword only is wanting. The last thing with which you would associate them would be a severe ancient classic. You would as soon look for Greek among the matadores at a bull-fight. Peru will produce no Porson while these cocked hats and gilt buttons continue in vogue among the boys.
But all the little boys belonging to families of note are dressed here like gentlemen. Your first impression would be, that you had arrived among a race of Lilliputians. But a closer observation shows you that these little well-dressed gentlemen are infantines, let loose from their nurses’ arms. They are but little more than knee-high; but wear, with singular gravity, their black beaver hats and long-tailed coats.
The same holds true of the little miss of eight and nine. Her hair, of singular length for that of a child, instead of falling in ringlets or plaits, is done up with a comb like that of her mother’s. Her silk dress, with its close bodice, depends gravely to the instep; her mantilla falls down her shoulders with the precision of that of a nun; while her hands and arms are adjusted with the utmost composure. Her whole air is that of a lady over whom some thirty years have passed, and she expects you to address her in the same respectful terms. She is the pocket-edition of a precise spinster.
Sunday, April 5. This being Palm Sunday, all Lima turned out to witness a procession intended to convey an idea of the last entrance of our Saviour into Jerusalem. On a platform, borne forward on the shoulders of six stout men, stood a donkey, on which a wax figure was mounted, while the staging was strewn with leaves of the palm. As it passed, hosannas broke from the lips of the spectators.