ccidentally intruded
on my quarters, but recovering their equanimity, very civilly removed
their head-gear and made a polite bow to me, while in the water!

Drives there are none at all pleasurable for any extent around the
city; nor are the rides more so. The environs, in all directions, are
intersected by heavy and high mud walls, shutting out air and vision,
leaving only heat and stifling clouds of dust to repay one's trouble.

Lima itself should not be too narrowly criticised from the streets;
although without, naught is beheld save dingy, adobie walls, dusty
cobwebbed lattices and balconies, half decayed, yet once pass the wide
and lofty portals, and many of the best houses have noble suites of
apartments, furnished with great taste and even splendor; besides, that
which gives, in a certain degree, an air of elegance, is the elaborate
mazes of glass doors, gaily papered or frescoed walls, and a profusion
of gilding. Light is usually thrown from the roof, and the houses are
cool and properly ventilated.

After a few _tertulias_, and a pretty ball given by the American Charge,
we had no other opportunities of mingling in Limenean society. There
were quite a number of pretty women, with very fair complexions and
winning manners, who danced like sylphs, as what Creole does not? Two
youthful Senoritas, of some sixteen and seventeen years, were pointed
out as little lumps of gold, of "purest ray serene," who were _fiancee_
to their uncles, fine old gentlemen of sixty! It was suggestive of a
post-chaise and bandboxes to any successful aspirant to the ownership of
a lovely pair of eyes. However, these out of the way alliances are quite
common in Lima, and perhaps the fair ones, at a later era, begin to
discover they have hearts of their own not to be sold to the highest
bidder, like bills of exchange at the mart! Very few of these deluded
damsels, it may be reasonably presumed, when fully aware of their
tender wrongs, can exclaim, in the words of the Spanish lady's ballad:

"I will not falsify my vows for gold nor gain,
Nor yet for all the _fondest swains_ that ever lived in Spain."

CHAPTER LIV.

The public edifices of Lima, which are so closely connected with the
History of the Conquest, and the bloody revolutionary struggles of Peru,
have no other attributes, either in architectural beauty or position to
recommend them.

The Cathedral occupies nearly one side of the grand plaza; the exterior