dalliance, which is most displayed at their “jarranas,” or merry meetings: they like the theatre, and they are passionately fond of bull-fights, cock-fights, religious processions, and that sort of song and music which inflame the passions and deprave the heart—their feasts too often degenerate into debauchery, and their merriment into obscenity.
Boys of pure Spanish parentage or descent, in Lima, are usually animated and intelligent, like their sisters; but, as their bodily powers approach to maturity, their attention is engrossed with frivolous pleasures, which seem to enervate the mental faculties, and stint and vitiate their future expansion. It is, therefore, not unusual for hopeful boys to become childish and fickle, silly and fatuous men. The latter imbecility of mind we observe with striking frequency in the families of the suppressed nobility.
Those very few well-tempered spirits that have outgrown every obstacle to their full mental developement, have that inborn thirst after knowledge which even knowledge itself cannot quench; for, the more they learn, the more they aspire to know; and these men, with little external incitement to forward or nurture their literary tastes and pursuits, are like those plants on arid land, which only require a few fleeting showers to quicken their energies, develope their form, and unfold their beauty. Such choice persons are the delight of their friends, and worthy of that better state of society for which they daily sigh, as they see the best laws and institutions of their country trampled upon by military despots, whose nod they must obey, while they say in their hearts, “Vetitum est sceleri nihil!”
On the 24th of June, (Dia de San Juan,) all Lima annually assemble along the windings of the “Great Alamada,” and between orangeries now prettily laden with fruit, to the romantic mountain recess of “Amencaes,” only about one mile from town, and beautifully adapted for pleasure-grounds, if only supplied with water, which it might have at some expense. This spot commands a fine view of the capital, with its towering spires; of wide fields, innumerable orchards, the Rimac, and the fine lagoon at its mouth; the island of San Lorenzo, and the shipping at Callao; and it has, in its back-ground, a set-off in the acclivities newly clothed with vivid vegetation, among numerous crags and many a ridge and chasm. Here, on the day of San Juan—a day of festivity and joy—men, women, and children, of all ranks, all ages, and all colours and occupations, meet. Mirth is the object of one and all. Their horses, their asses, and even their own persons, are adorned in their best manner; and the rational as well as the irrational members of the ever-moving crowd are bedecked with the flower of Amencaes taken from the favourite clefts and nooks of these hills. In this place there are tents and sheds, that supply seats and refreshment for those who love the thoughtless and bawling mirth of the “jarrana.” There is at this exhibition a dunning confusion of musical discord kept up by drumming, piping, shouting, harping, and guitaring, singing, laughing, and dancing; but no fighting. Here too we may see the popular “paseo,” or promenade, of the “chuchumecas,” (women of immoral character,) who mingle freely and good-humouredly with the crowd, to the infinite amusement of the multitude. The national taste is on this, as on other occasions of festivity, eminently displayed by the loud and simultaneous laugh, or “carcajada,” of cheering voluptuaries when the samaqueca—a favourite dance—is exhibited in a free and masterly style.
The periodical rides and picnics of the Limenians to Las Huacas, Surco, and Lurin, are now dwindling away into neglect, as there is neither money nor public tranquillity for such happy scenes of customary gaiety. Carnival, with them, has lost its spirit; the Noche Buena, or Christmas-eve, is deprived of much of its revelry; and all that in their customs was most alluring and glittering is rapidly withering and dying away.
We may now, not unfrequently, observe more disposition to indulge in the gloomy and silent stillness of the “duelo,” or formal condolence for the dead, than in the hilarity of the golden times of these merry-making people, who were for generations most happy in the unconsciousness of defects, and in the conviction that no people on earth were superior to themselves in knowledge and civilization.
In all parts of the world there are criminally selfish and unprincipled men; and in Peru there may be found a set of rogues, called “Pillos,” rendered more numerous and troublesome from the circumstances of the times. Of these the capital presents two kinds, which has led to the distinction of “pillo” and “pillo-fino.” The first is a very common and plausible sort of rogue; but the latter is, as the name implies, a more refined cheat, not unfrequently enticed from distant parts by the fame of the numerous attractions of Lima, the paralysis of the laws, and consequent facility of escaping chastisement. The clink of hard dollars and doubloons, shoveled into “talegas,” or money-bags, and again thrown open at the gambling-table, are such sounds as are sure to allure the pillo-fine to that promiscuous society of Limenian gamblers, where the precious coin usually finds its way into the hands of the crafty. Whatever be the land of this animal’s nativity, he is but a vampire—a human blood-sucker; but the simple pillo is a very different character, always plausible and pliable, an every-day and common-place member of society, who sponges on his neighbour, and whom all Englishmen courted for their generosity are sure to encounter. The ultimatum of this person’s milky adulation and very smiling policy is to procure a loan of money; and when he asks “plata prestada,” or money on loan, of any one, he assures that person, that applying to him is the greatest proof he can offer of his own friendly confidence and regard for the individual; but, while he is lavish of compliment, he takes care not to express his secret purpose, namely, never to reimburse whatever in this way he may hope to clutch.
It is a trite saying with the Spaniard—“Es bueno conocer el amigo sin perderlo,” that is, It is well to know a professed friend, but not to lose him; and this will be found, like most Spanish adages, to convey in actual life a lesson of practical wisdom. The common pillo, of whom we take notice, never thinks the less of you for giving him a polite refusal; and, by so doing, you act in the spirit of the above saying, and preserve both your friend and your money; for, when civilly refused, he in good nature leaves you, and proceeds forthwith in search of some less wary dupe, and thinks to himself as he departs from you, “Ya este sabe,”—This one is up to our tricks.
Though Peru be a land of gold and silver, yet nowhere are the precious metals in greater requisition than in Lima, where the scarcity of circulating capital is shown by the revolting dealings of the common usurer, who extorts from the victims of his cupidity two or three per cent. a month on the advances he makes; and the current and regular rate of interest in that country is one per cent. a month, or twelve per cent. a year.
The “plata,” or money, covers more delinquencies than charity itself; hence we hear such expressions as these: “Nada es mala que gana la plata,” viz. Nothing is bad that wins the money. “Bien, le costo su plata!”—Very well, (what is it to us?) it cost him his money! “Porque no tener su gusto cuando le cuesta la plata?”—Why not have his pleasure when it costs him the money?—as if money, forsooth, could annihilate the moral turpitude of sinful enjoyment.
We cannot give the reader a better idea of the popular ethics of Peru in the present day, than in the words of a friend long resident in the country, who said that Peru had the advantage over every other country he had seen—that in it “no one need ever be put out of countenance for anything he can say or do.” By so broad a statement as that conveyed in the expression now cited, we would only desire to represent the bad state of moral feeling prevalent among the bulk of a people not long since let loose to follow their own unrestrained wishes; without thereby meaning to deny the fact, that, in Lima more particularly, we often find that good natural dispositions and obliging manners do in no small degree supply, in the ordinary intercourse of life, the place of higher principle. And yet more: we would honourably except from this general description many individual examples of eminent virtue to be met in Peruvian society; striking instances of disinterested friendship and kindness (of which the writer himself has more than once been the favoured object); and the most generous, amiable, and praiseworthy bearing, which we have seen displayed by them in their domestic and social relations.
If we consider all things in the
