found in the pawn-shops of Lima, which are full of rare old silver,
paintings, china, and lace. The people are so poor that they are
compelled to sell their jewels to get bread and meat. The stagnation of
business has deprived them of their ordinary incomes from real estate,
and the war has taken off the laborers, so that the sugar haciendas and
the mills are idle. I met people whose incomes were formerly hundreds of
thousands of dollars, from rentals and interest on investments, who are
now compelled to patronize the pawn-shops, because their tenants cannot
pay rent and their investments no longer produce a profit. The
paper-money of the country is as valueless as the Confederate bills were
during our civil war. One issue, the Incas, is entirely worthless. The
Government tried to enforce its circulation by locking up men who
refused to accept it as legal tender; but the merchants marked up the
prices of their goods, and charged two thousand dollars a yard for
calico, when the Treasury surrendered, and issued another loan which is
almost as bad as the first. You give a twenty-dollar bill to your
bootblack and two hundred and fifty dollars an hour for a hack. It costs
about six hundred dollars a day for board at the hotel, and fifty
dollars for a bunch of cigarettes.
House-owners who have leased their property for a term of years without
specifying in what sort of money the rent shall be paid are compelled to
accept this worthless paper at par. I met a lady whose income from rents
ten years ago was more than a thousand dollars a week in gold, but now
it is only the same amount in paper--scarcely enough to pay the
servants--and she is selling her bric-à-brac to live. The haciendas and
farms are no longer tilled, because for several years past all the
laborers have been pressed into the army; and the sugar plantations are
useless, for the machinery by which they were operated was destroyed by
the Chilians during the recent war.
[Illustration: A PERUVIAN CHAMBER.]
The devastation which the Chilian army created was almost equal to that
caused by Pizarro when he invaded the homes of the peaceful Incas. The
lines of march of the Chilians are shown by the complete destruction of
everything they could break down or burn. Whole cities, villages, farms,
factories, were swept away by a malicious desire to do as much injury as
possible, regardless of the rights of non-combatants, and in violation
of all the laws of civilized war. The beautiful winter resorts of Peru,
Milleflores (its Newport) and Chorillos (its Long Branch), the
residence-places of the wealthy people and the haunts of those who
sought rest--where there were palaces as beautiful as those of Paris,
and parks like the legendary gardens of Babylon--were entirely
destroyed, not by accident, but by dynamite and other explosives.
Exquisite marble statues now lie in fragments upon the ground, artistic
fountains were shattered, trees were girdled, irrigating ditches
destroyed, and every possible vandalism was committed, not only on the
property of Peruvians, but upon that of foreigners, whose claims for
damages will amount to more than Chili can ever pay.
The magnificent trees in the parks, along the boulevards, and even in
the botanical garden, were cut down for fuel by the soldiers of Chili;
the entire museum of Peruvian curiosities, one of the largest and finest
in the world, was packed up and shipped to Santiago; the books in the
National Library were thrown into sacks and sent after the museum, and
historical paintings were cut from their frames as private plunder. The
greatest painting of Peru--Marini’s “Burial of Atahualpa, the last of
the Incas”--was stolen from the wall where it hung, but the protests of
the diplomatic corps induced the Chilians to return it. The churches and
private houses were stripped in a similar manner, and what could not be
stolen was burned. Nothing was sacred in the eyes of these modern
vandals, whose purpose was to deprive the Peruvians of everything they
prized.
The evidence of a refined taste in art and music is everywhere apparent
in Peru. There is scarcely a home without a piano, and the city of Lima
once rivalled Madrid in its treasures of art. There remain but two
notable statues--that of Columbus, in marble, representing him in the
act of handing a crucifix to an Indian girl; and that of Bolivar the
Liberator, upon a rearing horse, in bronze (like the statue of Jackson
in Washington), which stands in front of the old Inquisition building,
on the spot where heretics were burned two hundred years ago. The
famous arch over the old bridge, which was erected in 1610, has been
destroyed, and many other artistic ornaments of the city which have been
written of again and again are gone.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A LIMA DWELLING.]
The President occupies the former residence of Henry Meiggs, the
Californian, who did so much for Peru. It is a magnificent structure,
erected and furnished when money had no value to the owner; but, like
everything else in Lima, it is only a relic of its original beauty, and
as a measure of economy a corner of the lower floor is rented for a
grocery.
Those who have travelled everywhere say that the women of Lima are the
most beautiful in the world. There is something about the climate of the
country, where rain never falls,
[Illustration: A PERUVIAN PALACE.]
and where decay is almost unknown, that gives them a brilliancy of
complexion that women of other lands do not possess. Perhaps their
national costume does much to heighten their beauty, for any woman not
positively ugly would look well in the embroidered manta that the ladies
of Lima always wear. This manta is a shawl of black China crape, and the
amount of silk embroidery upon it indicates the wealth of the wearer.
Some of them are extremely beautiful and cost as much as five hundred
dollars; but ordinary mantas, such as the majority wear, can be bought
for fifteen or twenty dollars in Peruvian money, which is worth
twenty-five per cent. less than American gold. A very common article of
dyed cotton is imported from England at a cost of three or four dollars,
for the use of the negro and Indian women. The manta is worn by every
woman, regardless of her rank or wealth, whenever she appears on the
street; but in their homes, at the opera, and when they go out to
afternoon receptions or evening balls, the ladies adopt the Parisian
styles, and dress with a great deal of taste.
[Illustration: A PERUVIAN BELLE.]
The manta is square in shape and about two yards in size. It is folded
so as to be triangular, and the centre of the fold is placed upon the
forehead, where there is usually a bit of lace that hangs down to the
eyes. One end of the manta falls down the front of the dress as far as
the knee, while the other is thrown around the shoulders and fastened at
the breast with an ornamental pin. Thus, usually only the face is shown;
and when a maiden or a matron wishes to disguise herself, she draws the
shawl up so as to cover her mouth and nose, and permit only her great
black, roguish eyes to be seen. And such eyes! Always large, age never
seems to dim them, and no degree of self-discipline can rob them of or
subdue their coquettish appearance. The poet who wrote
“Of that dark queen
For whose mere smile a world was bartered,”
described a Lima lady. The manta is usually drawn so closely about the
figure as to show its outlines with the most conspicuous distinctness,
and the young women of Lima are as famous for their beauty of form as
for their beauty of face.
[Illustration: WATCHING THE PROCESSION.]
They are always slender, generally short of stature, and as graceful as
sylphs; but they lose their beauty of figure with maternity, and one
seldom finds a married woman more than thirty or thirty-five years of
age, if she is the mother of children, who retains the statuesque grace
of maidenhood. They ripen early, reach their prime at sixteen or
seventeen, and generally marry at that age. At twenty-five they are fat,
but they never lose the radiance of their eyes or their complexion.
Their stoutness comes from the lack of exercise and the excessive use of
sweetmeats, for they spend their lives in rocking-chairs, munching
_dulces_, as they call confectionery.
There is a romantic story about the manta which explains the reason that
it is always black. The Peruvian women never wear colors in the street,
and this custom is observed by the aristocracy as well as by the
peasantry; nor do they ever wear bonnets except at an opera, and there
very seldom. The same is true of the women of Ecuador and Chili,
although in the city of Valparaiso, which is the most modern in its
customs and in the style of living of any place on the west coast, the
use of the manta is gradually dying out, and it is worn only at church.
No woman with a bonnet on will be admitted to any Catholic church on the
west coast. Sometimes strangers wear them in, but the sextons and ushers
invariably ask that they be removed. Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren, of
Washington, in her book called “South Sea Sketches,” relates that she
was ordered out of a church because she was wearing a bonnet, and
misunderstanding what was said to her, took no notice of the command
until quite a commotion was raised, when some lady explained its cause.
A bonnet is called a _gorra_ in Spanish, and Mrs. Dahlgren was very much
amused at its similarity to the familiar Irish ejaculation.
It is said that the custom of wearing the manta originated among the
Incas, but that they wore colors until the assassination of Atahualpa,
their king, by the Spaniards under Pizarro. Then every woman in the
great empire, which stretched from the Isthmus of Panama to the Strait
of Magellan, abandoned colors and put on a black manta, and it has since
been worn as perpetual mourning for “the last of the Incas.” There is
probably some truth in this story, for in the graves of the Incas that
have been destroyed by scientific resurrectionists, have been found
female mummies with mantas of brilliant colors wrapped around them, and
fastened
[Illustration: THE DAUGHTER OF THE INCAS.]
with pins very much like those worn at the present day. It is also true
that the natives, the peons of Peru and Ecuador, the descendants of the
Incas, never wear anything except black, and still celebrate with
impressive and appropriate ceremonies the anniversary of the day on
which Atahualpa was strangled. In Chili the custom has died out, for the
Inca empire was never able to sustain itself there against the savage
Araucanian tribes of Indians who inhabited the southern range of the
Andes.
The Inca women in Peru and Ecuador are not at all pretty. They are
dwarfish in stature, broad across the shoulders, and resemble in feature
the squaws of the North American tribes, except that they have the
almond-shaped eyes of the Mongolians; and it is probably true, as urged
by the antiquarians, that the Incas were of the same origin as the
Chinese, for their customs, their adeptness at all sorts of ingenious
work, and their manner of living bear a striking resemblance to those of
the interior provinces of the Chinese empire. The Incas have had their
blood diluted by intermarriage with the lower grades of the Spanish
race, and it is very difficult to find pure natives now. The people of
the mixed race are called cholos.
It is the transplanted Spanish rose, the pure Castilian type, that
blooms with the greatest beauty in the gardens of Peru. The climate has
refined it, and has clarified the dark olive tint that is found in
Castile. The greatest beauties in Lima are the descendants of the oldest
families--those of the longest residence in the country--and their
loveliness appears not only to have been transmitted from generation to
generation, but to have been enhanced thereby. This is true not alone of
the aristocrats, for some of the loveliest girls belong to the humbler
families, and are found in the tenement-houses, clothed in the shabbiest
garments, which serve only to heighten their loveliness, and to make
them fair prey for the wolves that prowl around in Lima as they do
everywhere else. The fate of these girls, if described, would make a
chapter more horrible to contemplate than the disclosures recently made
in London. Their beauty is a fatal gift, and their poverty and ignorance
make them an easy prey to the tempter. Seldom are they allowed to remain
at home after the age of fourteen or fifteen, when they become the
mistresses of the haughty dons. But the social laws of Spanish America
are so liberal that these women are treated much better than in lands of
higher civilization, for it is not only expected that every
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE WAR.]
man who can support a mistress will do so, but his reputation will
suffer among his fellows if he does not.
Just now the country is prostrated, the effect of a long series of wars
during which it was robbed of everything that the army of Chili could
carry away; so that there is very little gayety and not much display of
dress. But the people retain the relics of their former prosperity, and
the ladies of the present generation have inherited the treasures their
mothers bought and wore at the time when money was so plenty. Much of
this finery--the jewels and laces--has gone to the pawnbrokers, and many
of the most aristocratic families in the republic are now living upon
its proceeds. The women are, like the French, very skilful in
dress-making, and everything they wear is becoming. They imitate the
Parisian styles with the greatest ingenuity, and have remarkable taste
in making over old clothes.
The pawnshops are full of beautiful things. Here are toilet sets of
solid silver, beautifully chased, including the meaner vessels of the
bedroom, which betoken the luxury and extravagance of an age when the
mines of the Andes were pouring out silver, and the guano-beds of the
sea were being turned into gold. Similar reminiscences of ancient glory
can be seen to-day in the toilets of the ladies, in the heirlooms which
they wear on their wrists, on their breasts, and in their ears, as well
as in the rich, old-fashioned fabrics which their grandmothers wore
before them, made in the days when people did not intend things to wear
out.
It is very difficult to secure admission to the aristocratic circles of
Peru. They are as exclusive as any such circle in the world, and social
laws are rigid. But an American who goes to Lima with good letters of
introduction will be received with cordial hospitality, and be admitted
to circles which the resident, however rich and respectable, can never
enter. American naval officers are especially welcome, and the Peruvian
belles are as strongly attracted by the glitter of brass buttons as are
their sisters in the United States. Since the war there have been few
public balls and few receptions, as the people are living from hand to
mouth, with little hope to brighten the commercial horizon; but when you
bring a letter to a Peruvian gentleman, his house and all his belongings
“are at your disposition, señor,” and he is offended unless you accept
his hospitality, although you may be aware that he has to pawn some
heirloom to pay for the dinner he gives you.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE ORDINARY SORT OF HOUSE.]
The ancient social restrictions which make it a breach of decorum for a
gentleman to meet a lady alone until after marriage, still exist in
Peru. If you call at the residence of Señor Bustamente you must ask for
him, and if he is not at home you may leave your compliments for the
ladies of the family, but under no circumstances ask to see them. If he
is
[Illustration: A VERY COMMON SPECTACLE.]
at home your welcome will be cordial, and you will be asked to a seat
upon the sofa, which is always reserved for guests, and is the place of
honor. You will be entertained by him until the ladies appear one by
one, for they always stop to dress. No Spanish-American lady is ever
ready to receive a caller. The lady of the house and her daughters will
chat with you about the opera and the bull-fight and the latest scandal,
and will perform brilliantly upon the piano, but beyond that her powers
of entertainment do not go. If you can get Señorita Dolores over in the
corner--and she will be delighted with a _tête-à-tête_--you will find
that she knows nothing whatever about the world beyond her own limited
circle of acquaintance. She has not the vaguest idea of the United
States, and does not know whether Paris is in America, or New York in
England. She will look at you with her great eyes with the most childish
innocence, and ask if the bullfights in New York are as exciting as
those of Lima, and if there is as agile a picador in the States as Señor
Rubio. When you tell her that bull-fighting is not recognized as a
legitimate amusement in New York, she will exclaim “Santa Maria!” and
ask what entertainment you have when the opera-house is closed. Then,
when you say that eight or ten theatres are always open, she will cry
out to papa across the room to take her to New York by the next steamer.
The señorita got her education at a convent, has learned to embroider,
to play the piano, to dance, and has committed to memory the lives of
the saints; and there her accomplishments end. She is so beautiful that
you are sorry you explored her mind; you feel guilty of having exposed
her ignorance; you wish that you could simply sit and look at her, a
picture of loveliness, forever; but when you ask her to dance, and she
moves away with you in a waltz or mazourka, you discover that however
empty her head may be, the education of her feet has not been neglected.
No one who has ever waltzed with a Peruvian girl will wish for another
partner. She is simply animated gracefulness, and her endurance is
remarkable. She clings a little closer than our girls would consider
consistent with propriety, and dances with an abandon that would call
out a remonstrance from a watchful mamma in the States. She gives her
whole mind and soul to it, regardless of consequences, and sighs when
the music ceases, as if there were nothing more in life to enjoy.
[Illustration: A PERUVIAN MILK-PEDDLER.]
The air and light of Lima are very favorable for photography, and the
city has galleries as fine as any in New York. The reception-rooms,
corridors, show-windows, and even the ceilings, are lined with portraits
of belles of the town, which are on sale not only there but at the
news-stands and printshops. In Havana and Venezuela, to have the
photograph of a young lady is equivalent to the announcement of an
engagement, but in Peru it signifies nothing. You can buy the portraits
of your neighbors’ daughters anywhere in town, and their popularity is
estimated by the number sold. Lima girls, with their great black eyes
and shapely figures, make fine subjects for a photographer, and
strangers usually take home collections of the pictures of beauties.
The photograph dealers have their portraits put up in covers ready for
the market, like views of Niagara Falls or Coney Island.
Milk is peddled about Lima by women, who sit astride a horse or a mule,
with a big can hanging on either side of the saddle. When they ride up
to a door-way they give a peculiar shrill scream, which the servants
within recognize.
Most of the embroidery and other similar work in Lima is done by the
nuns, who are very expert at it. They make the finest sort of lace,
embroider towels, napkins, handkerchiefs, and skirt-fronts for dresses
on silk and velvet. At some of the shops you can buy dress patterns;
that is, skirt-fronts, sleeves, collar, cuffs, belt, etc., embroidered
in the finest possible style, and ready to make up. It is one of the
ancient customs handed down from the days of the viceroys. The nuns make
most of the confectionery sold in the city, moulding the unrefined sugar
into artistic shapes, coloring it to imitate nature, and flavoring it to
suit the palate.
The fashionable entertainment in Peru is bull-baiting. The bull is not
killed, as in Spain and Mexico and other countries, and no horses are
slaughtered in the ring. The animal is simply teased and tortured to
make a Liman holiday. The young men of the city do the baiting, and it
is regarded as a very high-toned sort of athletic sport, like polo at
Newport. The young ladies take darts made of tin, decorate them with
ribboned lace and rosettes, and give them to their lovers to stick into
the hide of the bull. The great feat is to cast these darts so as to
strike the bull in the fore-shoulder or in the face, and in order to do
it he who throws them must stand before the animal’s horns. Active young
fellows perform very dexterously, but it takes nerve and agility, and at
times fair señoritas have seen their lovers badly gored.
Another form of entertainment is what is called _Buena Noche_, or “Good
Night.” Then the band plays in the principal plaza, fireworks are
exploded at the expense of the shopkeepers and saloon-men, whose profits
are increased,
[Illustration: MINDLESS OF CARE.]
hucksters surround the place with tables, selling cakes, candies,
ice-cream, and peanuts, and all the populace come out to gossip and
flirt. These festivals furnish about the only opportunity for Vilkins to
get a word alone with his Dinah, for on a “Buena Noche” he can offer her
his arm, and promenade up and down the plaza, murmuring soft nothings in
her ear as long as she will hear them, or until the great bell of San
Pedro strikes midnight, when there are a hustle and a bustle, and
everybody goes home.
Some of the largest and finest stores in Lima are owned and managed by
Chinese merchants, who have the monopoly of the trade in mantas and silk
dress-goods. Italians usually keep the bodegas and eating-houses. There
are half a dozen large American mercantile establishments, and the house
of Grace Brothers, of which Mr. William R. Grace, ex-mayor of New York,
is the head, practically monopolizes the foreign trade of Peru. Much of
the business in the interior is done by itinerant peddlers, who carry
their wares on their backs, and tramp over the whole continent from the
Isthmus to Patagonia. There is also a class of itinerant doctors of
Indian blood, called _collahuayas_, who travel on foot from Bogota, in
Colombia, to Buenos Ayres, carrying the news from place to place, and
practising a sort of voodoo system over the sick. They are well known
throughout the country, and exercise a remarkable influence among the
natives, who entertain them as guests of distinction wherever they go.
All the benevolent institutions of Lima are supported by a “Sociedad de
Beneficencia,” an organization of citizens who raise money by private
subscriptions, and by bull-fights, cock-fights, and lotteries. The
Penitentiary is a noble building, erected on the plan of the
Philadelphia House of Correction, by a Philadelphia architect, the
prisoners in which are engaged in making uniforms, shoes, and other
equipments for the army. Capital punishment is abolished in Peru, but
political offenders are tried by military courts, and shot when found
guilty of conspiracy or treason. There are in the prison one hundred and
thirty-five unhanged murderers serving out life sentences.
There are four daily newspapers in Lima, in which are published
cablegrams from all parts of the world. They are edited with ability,
but their writers indulge in the grandiose, florid style that sounds
very funny to the plain-spoken American. One of the editors was sent to
jail and fined five hundred dollars, besides having his paper
suppressed, for making some reflections upon the acts of Congress; but
as soon as he got out of prison he started another paper, and he is now
blazing away in the most fearless manner, just as if the penitentiary
were not half empty and the Government in need of convict labor. The
papers make their appearance on the street about ten o’clock at night,
and are cried by newsboys, who make as much racket as our own. In the
morning carriers deliver copies to regular subscribers. Advertising
patronage seems to be pretty good in Lima, for the newspapers have about
two pages of display “ads.” to every one of reading matter; but they do
not get good rates, and times are so hard that the merchants give very
little cash, but require the editors to “trade it out” in the country
fashion. Advertising is always an index to commerce, and the condition
of Peru is illustrated by the fact that almost every merchant in Lima is
selling out at cost--_gran realization_, they call it. Credit is not
given at the stores except to the Government, and that is compulsory.
The foreign merchants will not sell to the authorities except for cash,
and the native merchants do not want to, for only in one instance in a
hundred are they ever paid.