72 



COSTUME. 



Sunday is the great market-day, and the market-place is filled with 

 country people, who come in to sell their manufactures of ponchos, 

 blankets, shoes, hats, (made of the vicuna wool,) &c, and to buy coca, 

 cotton goods, and agua diente, as well as to attend mass and get drunk. 

 It is quite a busy and animated scene. The men are generally dressed 

 in tall straw hats, ponchos, breeches, buttoned at the knee, and long 

 woollen stockings ; the women, in a blue woollen skirt, tied around the 

 waist, and open in front, to show a white cotton petticoat, the shoulders 

 covered with a mantle consisting of two or three yards of gay-colored 

 plush, called "Bayeta de Castillo," or Spanish baize. Everything 

 foreign in this country is called "de Castilla" (of Castile ;) as in Brazil, 

 it is called "da Rainha" (of the Queen.) The skirt of a lady of higher 

 quality consists of a colored print, or mousseline. She rarely, unless 

 dressed for company, takes the trouble to put on the body of her dress, 

 which hangs down behind, and is covered with a gay shawl, passed 

 around the bust, with the end thrown gracefully over the left shoulder. 

 The hair, particularly on Sundays, is in perfect order ; parted in the 

 middle, and hangs down in two plaits behind. It is surmounted by a 

 very neat, low-crowned straw-hat, the crown being nearly covered with 

 a broad ribbon ; and she is always " bien calzada" (well shod.) The 

 women are generally large and well developed ; not very pretty, but 

 with amiable, frank, and agreeable manners ; they have, almost in- 

 variably, a pleasant smile, with an open and engaging expression of 

 countenance. 



Religion flourishes in Tarma ; and the Cura seems to have a busy 

 time of it ; though it is said he is cheated of half his rights in the way 

 of marriage fees. I think that no day passed while we were here that 

 there was not a "fiesta" of the church ; for, although there are not 

 more than twenty-five or thirty feast days in the year insisted upon by 

 the church and the government, yet any piously-disposed person may get 

 up one when he pleases. The manner seems to be this : A person, either 

 from religious motives or ostentation, during or after Divine service in 

 the church, approaches the altar, and, kissing one of its appendages, (I 

 forget which,) proclaims his intention of becoming mayordomo or 

 superintendent of such and such a fiesta — generally that of the Saint 

 .after whom he is named, and thereupon receives the benediction of the 

 priest. This binds him and his heirs to all the expenses of the celebra- 

 tion, which, in the great functions in Lima, may be set down at no 

 small matter — the heaviest item being the lighting of one of those 

 large churches from floor to dome with wax. The jewels and other 

 adornments of the images borne in procession are generally borrowed 



