of a
foreigner walking along indifferently, and without raising his hat,
makes a painful impression on the minds of the people.

Christmas-night (_Noche buena_) is a great festival in Lima. The streets
and squares, especially the _Plaza Mayor_, are crowded with people,
amusing themselves in all sorts of ways. Hundreds of persons take their
seats on the benches of the Plaza; there they regale themselves with
sherbet, ices, and pastry, and look at the dancing of the negroes, &c.
On this occasion the midnight mass is performed with extraordinary
solemnity. On Christmas-day some of the families of Lima get up what are
called _Nacimientos_, consisting of symbolical representations of the
birth of the Saviour. On some of these shows considerable expense and
ingenuity are bestowed.

In Carnival time Lima is so unpleasant a place of residence that many
families retire to the country during that season of misrule. One of the
favorite sports consists in sprinkling people with water; and from all
the balconies various kinds of liquids are thrown on the passers-by.
Groups of Negroes post themselves at the corners of the streets, where
they seize people, and detain them prisoners, until they ransom
themselves by the payment of a certain sum of money. Those who do not
pay the money are rolled in the street gutters, and treated in the most
merciless way; whilst those who purchase grace escape with having a few
handfulls of dirty water thrown in their faces. Even in private houses,
relations and intimate acquaintances are guilty of the most
unwarrantable annoyances. Parties of young men enter the houses of
families with whom they are acquainted, and begin sprinkling the ladies
with scented water. That being exhausted, spring water, or even dirty
water, is resorted to, so that what began in sport ends in reckless
rudeness. The ladies, with their clothes dripping wet, are chased from
room to room, and thereby become heated. The consequence is, in many
instances, severe and dangerous illness. Inflammation of the lungs,
ague, rheumatism, &c., are the usual results of these carnival sports,
to which many fall victims. A year never passes in which several murders
are not committed, in revenge for offences perpetrated during the
saturnalia of the carnival.

A very favorite trick adopted in carnival time, for frightening people
as they pass along the streets, is the following:--a sack, filled with
fragments of broken glass and porcelain, i