sala a glazed door opens
into a smaller apartment, called the _Cuadro_, which is elegantly, often
splendidly furnished, and the floor is carpeted. This is the room into
which visitors are shown. Adjoining the cuadro are the sleeping-rooms,
the dining-room, the nursery, &c. These apartments communicate with a
second court-yard, called the _Traspatio_, the walls of which are often
adorned with fresco paintings. This _Traspatio_, a portion of which is
usually laid out as a little garden, communicates with the kitchen and
the stable (_corral_). A small avenue, called the _callejon_, forms a
communication from the first to the second Patio, and is used as a
passage for the horses. When there is no _callejon_, as is often the
case in the poorer class of houses, the horses are led through the sala
and the cuadro. In the upper story the arrangement of the rooms differs
from that of the ground-floor. Above the azaguan is the cuadro, opening
into a balcony, which is attached to most of the houses in Lima. The
sala in the upper story forms an ante-room to the cuadro; and the rest
of the apartments are built above the ranges of ground-floor rooms on
either side of the patio. Above the sala and cuadro of the ground-floor,
there are no upper rooms. The roofs of those two apartments form a kind
of large terrace called the _Azotea_, which is paved with freestone, and
surrounded by a railing. This _azotea_ serves as a play-ground for the
children of the family; it is ornamented with flower-pots, and covered
with an awning to shade it from the sun. The upper story has a flat
roof, composed of bamboos and mats, overspread with mortar or light
tiles. In the houses of Lima, as in those of Callao, the windows of some
of the rooms are made in the roofs. The other windows, of which there
are but few, are on each side of the house door; they are tastefully
ornamented, and often have richly gilt lattices.

The style of house-building here described must of course be taken
merely as a general example; that there are numerous deviations from it
may naturally be supposed. In the large houses the walls are of brick,
faced with ornamental tiles (_adobes_). In the smaller houses, the walls
consist of double rows of bamboos, covered with plaster, and afterwards
painted white or yellow. The fronts of the houses are usually quite
plain, but here and there may be seen a house with a finely ornamented
facade. The house of Torre Tagle, near San Pedro, and s