194 



SOUTH COAST OF PEKU. 



Arica, who had been totally ruined by the recent 

 events of the war. He described the battles to us, 

 and in very affecting terms recounted his own mis- 

 fortunes, and, what seemed to distress him more, 

 the loss of a great quantity of property belonging 

 to others, entrusted to his care. His family were 

 about him, but they were equally destitute ; and 

 the picture was every moment heightened by 

 some little touch of distress, too trifling to be de- 

 scribed, or to be thought much of at a distance. 

 There is a romantic or picturesque sort of inter- 

 est which belongs to well-described distress, that 

 has no existence in the reality. In the one case, 

 a multitude of small well-told circumstances, by 

 giving force and apparent"^ truth of effect to the 

 imaginary picture, render it pleasing; but the 

 very same circumstances, when actually witness- 

 ed, produce a totally opposite emotion. The uni- 

 versal look of sorrow, for example, the total dis- 

 comfort, the pitiable make-shifts, the absence of 

 ease and cheerfulness, the silence, the disordered 

 aspect of every thing, the misplaced furniture, the 

 neglected dress, and innumerable other details, 

 all produce at the time a painful degree of com- 



