162 TEAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



then commanded had had much trouble about the 

 matter, and Ready himself remained long unem- 

 ployed, until the rapid increase of trade between the 

 United States and the infant republics of South 

 America had caused seamen of ability to be in much 

 request, and he had again obtained command of a 

 vessel. 



We were seated one afternoon outside the French 

 coffee-house at Lima. The party consisted of seven 

 or eight captains of merchant-vessels that had been 

 seized, and they were doing their best to kill the 

 time, some smoking, others chewing, but nearly all 

 with penknife and stick in hand, whittling as for a 

 wager. On their first arrival at Lima, and adoption 

 of this coffee-house as a place of resort, the tables and 

 chairs belonging to it seemed in a fair way to be cut 

 to pieces by these indefatigable whittlers ; but the 

 coffee-house keeper had hit upon a plan to avoid such 

 deterioration of his chattels, and had placed in every 

 corner of the room bundles of sticks, at which his 

 Yankee customers cut and notched, till the coffee- 

 house assumed the appearance of a carpenter's shop. 



The costume and airs of the patriots, as they called 

 themselves, were no small source of amusement to us. 

 They strutted about in all the pride of their fire-new 

 freedom, regular caricatures of soldiers. One would 

 have on a Spanish jacket, part of the spoils of Ayacu- 

 cho another, an American one, which he had bought 

 from some sailor a third, a monk's robe, cut short, 



