Social state of the Limenians under the Spaniards and Patriots.—Spanish colonists.—Style of conversation.—Improvements in female education.—Zamba attendants.—Omnipotence of the ladies at fifteen.—Esprit de corps of the fair sex.—Forgiving temper of public opinion.—Defective administration of justice.—Prerogative called Empeño.—God-fathers and god-mothers.—Saint-day parties.—Flowers and perfumes.—Limenian women excel in attention to the sick.—General character of the white women and dark races.—Boys of European race.—Few men of intellectual habits.—Promenade of Amencaes, as illustrative of national feeling and character.—Pillo and Pillo-fino.—Money a substitute for morality.—Relaxation of morals general, but not universal.
Persons of sufficiently mature age in Lima never fail to acknowledge, and often delight to tell us, that before the great revolution, and during the tranquil period of their own early recollections, their fellow-citizens and countrymen were in general fair and upright in their ordinary dealings; and that good humour, happiness, and gaiety of heart were inseparable from their frequent public meetings and social recreations.
But this sound and amicable spirit, which indeed appears to have diffused itself pretty generally in the time of the Spanish dynasty, we may trace as emanating from the many estimable and courteous qualities of those more enlightened Europeans, by whose superior capacity and direction the then existing order of society was so long and quietly upheld in this and in other sections of the New World. The past state of things was nevertheless faulty in many respects. It involved an uncontrolled indulgence in sensual gratification, though the memory of many a disappointed patriot likes to dwell on it as on the flowery retrospect of his happiest days. But Lima is no longer a garden of roses, or a bower of delight. One day, in speaking of the change to the worse that the revolution had brought about in the social system of his country, a venerable old man remarked, “Formerly there was a heart to feel, and a hand to give; but now they have left us neither friendship nor pity: you find not whom to trust; and men, without regard to right or justice, keep all to themselves with the close unyielding grasp of the ape when she clasps her young to her bosom.”