eyed all the boasted knowledge of their priests.
According to the properties which they ascribed to animals, they chose
them to be the emblems of moral objects. Thus ingratitude was expressed
by a viper; imprudence, by a fly; wisdom, by an ant; knowledge, by an
eye; eternity, by a circle which has neither beginning nor end; a man
universally shunned, by an eel, which they supposed to be found with no
other fish. Sometimes they joined two or more of these characters
together, as a serpent with a hawk's head, denoted nature, with God
presiding over it.

INA.

* * * * *

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

BULL-FIGHTS AT LIMA.

_From General Miller's Memoirs. Second edition._

The taste for bull-fights, introduced by the early Spaniards, is
retained by their American descendants with undiminished ardour. The
announcement of an exhibition of this kind produces a state of universal
excitement. The streets are thronged, and the population of the
surrounding country, dressed in their gayest attire, add to the
multitudes of the city. The sport is conducted with an eclat that
exceeds the bull-fights in every other part of South America, and
perhaps even surpasses those of Madrid. The death of the bull, when
properly managed, creates as much interest in the ladies of Lima, as the
death of the hare to the English huntress, or the winning horse to the
titled dames at Newmarket or Doncaster. Nor can the pugilistic _fancy_
of England take a deeper interest in the event of a prize-fight, than
the gentlemen of Lima in the scientific worrying of a bull. It is
curious to observe how various are ideas of cruelty in different
countries. The English, for instance, exclaim against the barbarity of
the bull-fight, as compared with the noble sport of cock-fighting,
badger-baiting, &c. But their enlightened horror could not exceed the
disgust shown by a young South American, who witnessed a casual
boxing-match between two boys in Hyde Park, surrounded and encouraged,
as he expressed himself, by well-dressed barbarians. It is amusing to
witness the complacency with which one nation accuses another of
cruelty, without taking a glance at customs at home. The bulls destined
for the ring are obtained principally from the woods in the valleys of
Chincha, where they are bred in a wild state. To catch and drive them to
Lima, a distance of sixty leagues, is a matter of no inconsiderable
expense. A bull is gi