Deck and port /

by Walter Colton

These being the facts. Commodore Stockton called in person on the governor of the port and demanded the captain’s release. His firmness, and his ability to back his demands with the guns of the Congress, had the desired effect. The captain was liberated. This was done, not to rescue the captain from just amenability, but from unjust imprisonment. When the case was examined into by the proper authorities he was acquitted of all blame: still his innocency would not have saved him from a vexatious confinement but for this resolute proceeding on the part of the Commodore.

Thursday, April 16. The Indian’s eyrie, on the summit of some steep and lofty mountain, says a traveller, may be easily passed many times unnoticed by the stranger. But he will one day encounter a swift-footed Indian, closely followed by a person on a well-accoutred mule,—whose geer is all laden with silver ornaments; and the rider, who sits at his ease in a saddle of the country, with a rich pillion, wears a large brimmed hat, with a black silk cap emerging to view at the ears and temples. He has on a couple of ponchos, well decorated and fringed:—his brown stockings are of warm Vecuña wool; and the heel of his small shoe, half concealed in a clumsy, though costly wooden stirrup, is armed with a prodigiously disproportioned silver spur, with a large tinkling roller, used to keep his noble animal in mind that she is but the harbinger of death, and carries on her back the keeper of the sinner’s conscience.

This minister of peace to the miserable hurries to shrive the soul of a dying Indian, whose abode, like the falcon’s, overlooks the paths of the ordinary wayfaring man; and which, when descried, seems to the sight of the observer underneath to be, indeed, the loftiest earthly point between the ground he himself stands upon, and the heaven for which, it is believed, the anxious and fluttering spirit of the dying man only waits the curate’s absolution and blessing to wing its immortal flight. When all is over, when the absolving benediction has been pronounced, and death has triumphed where life took its last stand, the pale pulseless form, wrapped in its most costly vest, is dressed for burial. Wild-flowers are strewn on the dead by the Indian maiden, while the cliffs around mournfully echo back the funeral dirge. How true is human instinct to the awful mystery of the grave!

Observing an immense concourse on the grand plaza, I elbowed my way among them, and soon ascertained the cause of the rush to be the drawing of the public lottery. On an elevated ample platform were seated the judges, before whom revolved three hollow globes. The first contained the billets representing the prizes, the second the names of those who held tickets, the third the numbers of these tickets. When the globes stopped revolving, the lads stationed at each drew, through a small aperture, simultaneously, a billet. One contained the prize, another the number of the ticket, the third the name of the owner. Every heart was now in a terrible flutter till the number and name were announced; and then a shadow fell on many faces that were bright a moment before.

The largest prize was a thousand dollars; the least was a silver pitcher, or a silver unmentionable, belonging to chamber furniture, and which was displayed without the slightest sentiment of mirth. A more motley crowd than those whose dreams of wealth were here dashed, delusive hope never brought together. They assembled in noise and mirth, and separated in silence and sadness. Such a scene as this the grand plaza presents on the afternoon of every Wednesday. The proprietor of the lottery pays the state annually forty thousand dollars for his privilege. The tickets are one real, or twelve and a half cents each. They who cannot buy ten, twenty, or a hundred, can buy one. In this lies the secret of its success and mischief. It finds a dupe wherever it can find a fool with a penny. The venders of these lottery tickets hawk them through every street and lane, and from the stepstones of every church in Lima. The pious signature assumed by the purchaser, shows that he connects his hopes of success with the assurances of his religious faith. No one here would pit a cock without a prayer to his patron saint.

Friday, April 17. On the Sabbath which succeeded Holy Week I went to the cathedral to attend worship, and found it closed; continued on to the church of San Pedro, and found that closed; turned off to the church of San Augustin, and found that also closed. Observing the streets full of people, who were moving towards the broad bridge which crosses the Rimac, I concluded that there must be some great religious festival in that quarter, and followed on.

The crowds continued to move over the Rimac, but instead of entering any church, wound off, in solid column, through the rows of trees which shade its left bank. I at last inquired of an intelligent looking man who was walking at my elbow, to what sacred spot they were bound. When, with a look of half wonder at my ignorance, he replied, To the corrida de toros!—the bull-fight! I turned on my heel and threaded my way back, with some difficulty, through the crowds who were pressing onward to the savage spectacle. Among them were groups of children from the schools,—boys in gay frocks, and girls in white, with wreaths of flowers around their sunny locks, headed by their teachers. Monks with their beads, mothers with their daughters; infancy at the breast, and old age with one foot in the grave; all chattering and laughing, and jostling and shouting, and pressing on to the bull-ring, on the Sabbath!

Upon inquiry, I found that these bull-fights formerly took place on Monday, but that the Archbishop of Lima, to enable the laboring classes to attend them, had changed the day to the Sabbath. They are a horrible spectacle at best, utterly revolting to every sentiment of refinement and humanity; and the social and moral evils which they inflict would be sufficiently revolting were they confined to secular occasions, but they become doubly pernicious when they involve such an outrage on the sanctity of the Sabbath, under the sanction, too, of the highest ecclesiastical functionary in the state.

Bull-fights, as conducted here, involve very little peril and suffering except to the poor beast. His antagonists are pretty safe, or he would drive them out of the arena. It is an exhibition of craft and cowardice on one side, and courage and despair on the other. Of the two, the bull sustains much the nobler part, and would have much the larger share of my sympathy and respect. If men must fight for the amusement of their fellows, let them fight one another. If the death of one don’t furnish sufficient, excitement, then let the other be shot or hung, as the taste of the spectators shall suggest. But let them not catch a poor beast, torture him with fagots and fire, skulk themselves, and pick him to death with their long weapons, and then insult the intelligence of the community by calling the dastardly act an exhibition of chivalry and valor.

It is no wonder the ladies in Lima are deficient in delicacy and moral refinement, accustomed as they are from their childhood to such savage spectacles. It is but justice, however, to say, that there are some mothers here who will not permit their daughters to attend them; nor will they allow them, for this, or any other purpose, to disguise themselves in the saya y manto. There was one righteous man in Sodom, and there is more than one good mother even in Lima.