velvet hangings, laced and fringed with gold.
The chapel called del Milagro is most tastefully ornamented; some of the paintings executed by Don Matias Maestre are good: the high altar is cased with silver, and the niche of the Madonna is beautifully wrought of the same material. Mass is celebrated here every half-hour, from five in the morning till noon. In the vestry of this chapel are paintings of the heads of the apostles, by Reubens, or, as some assert, by Morillo; however this may be, they are undoubtedly very fine. The following story is related of this Madonna. On the 27th of November, 1630, a very severe shock of an earthquake was felt; the effigy was then standing over the porch of the church, fronting the street; but at the time of the shock she turned round, they say, and facing the high altar, lifted up her hands in a supplicating posture, and thus, according to many pious believers, preserved the city from destruction! From this act she is called del milagro, of the miracle.
FEMALES OF LIMA.
Engraved for Stevenson's Narrative of South America.
Another chapel, elegantly ornamented, is of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores; and one in the interior of the convent is dedicated to the fraternity of Terceros of the order, and the religious exercises of St. Ignacio de Loyola, with a cloister of small cells for exercitantes. The chapel contains five beautiful paintings from the passion of Christ, by Titian; they belong to the Count of Lurigancho, and are only lent to the chapel. Inside the convent is a pantheon or mausoleum for the order and some of the principal benefactors; but it is at present closed, all the dead being now interred at the pantheon on the outside the city walls. The principal cloister is very handsome: the lower part of the walls is covered with blue and white Dutch tiles, above which is a range of paintings, neatly executed, taken from the life of St. Francis. The pillars are of stone; the mouldings, cornices, &c. of stucco. The roof is of panel work, which with the beams is most laboriously carved: at the angles are small altars of carved wood. In the middle of this cloister there is a garden and an arbour of jessamine on trellis work, crossing it at right angles: in the centre is a beautiful brass fountain; and in the middle of each square, formed by the intersection of the arbour, is a smaller one, throwing the water twenty feet high. The minor squares are filled with pots of choice flowers, and a number of birds in cages hang among the jessamines. Two large folding gates lead from the church to the cloister, and whether the garden be viewed from the former, or the music of the choir be heard from the latter, the effect is equally fascinating. The stairs from the lower cloister to the upper, as well as the church choir, are beautifully finished. There are two flights of steps to the first landing place, and one from thence to the top; the centre flight is supported by a light groined arch; over the whole is a dome of wood-work, elegantly carved, and producing a most noble effect. This convent has nine cloisters, including the noviciate, and belonging to it there are about three hundred friars. The provincial prelate is elected by the chapter, a Spaniard and a Creole alternately; the order is of mendicants, and consequently possesses no property; it is supported by charity, and having the exclusive privilege of selling shrouds, it acquires a very large income, as no one wishes that a corpse should be buried without the sacred habit of St. Francis. The shroud is in fact exactly the same as the habit of the friar, which gave rise to the curious remark of a foreigner, "that he had observed none but friars died in this place." The library is rich in theological works.
Belonging to St. Francis is the recluse of St. Diego. The friars in this small convent wear the coarse grey habit, and are barefooted. They lead a most exemplary life, seldom leave their cloisters except on the duty of their profession, and even then one never goes alone; if a young friar be sent for, an old friar accompanies him, and vice versa: to the intent that the young friar may profit by the sage deportment of the old. At this convent, as well as at every other of the order of St. Francis, food is daily distributed to the poor at twelve o'clock, at the postern, and many demi-paupers dine with the community in the refectory. The gardens of St. Diego are extensive, and contain a large stock of good fruit trees, as well as medicinal plants. The solemn silence which reigns in the small but particularly clean cloisters of this convent seem to invite a visitor to religious seclusion; for, as it is often said, the very walls breathe sanctity. Here is also a cloister of small cells, and a chapel for religious exercises, where any man may retire for a week from the hurry and bustle of the town, and dedicate a portion of his life to religious meditation. During Lent the number of those who thus retire is very great; their principal object is to prepare themselves to receive the communion; and they have every assistance with which either precept or example can furnish them.
The church of San Agustin is small, light, and ornamented with sculpture and gilding. The convent is of the second class, but the order is rich, and their college of San Ildefonso is considered the best conventual college in Lima.
The church of Nuestra Señora de la Merced is large, but not rich. This order, as well as that of San Agustin, elect their provincial prelates every year; they are always natives, no Spaniard being allowed to become a prelate; even the habit is denied them, so that few Spaniards of either of the two orders are to be found in Lima, and these few belong to other convents. The duty of the order, which is denominated a military one, is to collect alms for the redemption of captive Christians.
In the churches belonging to the nunneries there is a great quantity of tasteful ornaments, but nothing very costly, although the income of one, the Concepcion, exceeds a hundred thousand dollars annually. It is said, that the four best situations in Lima are the Mother Abbess of Concepcion, the Provincialate of Santo Domingo, the Archbishopric, and the Viceroyalty.
The enormous sums of money which the nunneries have received at different times almost exceed belief; for independently of gifts and other pious donations, the dowry of each nun, when she takes the veil, amounts to three thousand dollars; and many females who have been possessed of large sums have declared their whole property to have been their dowry—thus preventing the possibility of a law-suit, and often depriving, by this subterfuge, poor relatives from enjoying what they had long hoped for at the death of the possessor.
Nuns, as well as friars, have one year of probation, as novices, before they can profess or take the veil, which seals their doom for life. When a female chooses to become a nun she is usually dressed in her best attire, and attended by a chosen company of friends, whom she regales at her own house, or at that of some acquaintance; in the evening she goes to the church of the nunnery, and is admitted into the lower choir by a postern in the double gratings; she retires, but soon re-appears dispossessed of her gay attire, and clothed in the religious habit of the order, without either scapulary or veil, and then bids adieu to her friends, who immediately return to their houses, whilst the nuns are chaunting a welcome to their new sister. At the expiration of a year, the novice is questioned as to the purity of her intentions, by the Mother Abbess, or Prioress; and if she express a desire to profess, a report is made to the Prelate of the order, who is the bishop, or his delegate, or the provincial prelate of the monastic order; for some nunneries are under the jurisdiction of the ordinary, or bishop, and others under that of the regulars of their own order. The evening before the day appointed for the solemn ceremony of taking the veil, the prelate, accompanied by the chaplain of the nunnery, and the parents and friends of the nun, goes to the gate or locutory of the nunnery, and the novice is delivered to him by the Mother Abbess and community, in their full habits of ceremony; she is then led to the church, when the prelate seating himself, the chaplain reads to her the institute or laws and regulations of the order; he questions her as to her own will, explains to her the duty of the profession she is going to embrace, and warns her not to be intimidated by threats, nor hallucinated by promises, but to say whether by her own consent, free will, and choice she have determined to become a sister of the order, and a professed spouse of Christ, according to the spirit of the Church. If she answer in the affirmative, she is re-conducted to the locutory, where she spends the evening with her friends, or, if she desire it, she can go to the house of her parents, or visit other religious houses. Early the next morning the novice makes her private vows of chastity,
