perichole' and the viceroy. 239 



ly there issued from the palace, which occupies an- 

 other side of the square, a great lumbering old- 

 fashioned gilt coach ; which drove to the entrance 

 of the cathedral, and having received the priest 

 charged with the Host, or consecrated wafer, mov- 

 ed slowly away to the house of some dying person. 

 The Host is usually carried in procession on foot ; 

 but a carriage has been appropriated to this duty 

 in Lima, in consequence of a curious circumstance, 

 the details of which were related to me by a per- 

 son who delighted in anything tending to make the 

 past times look ridiculous. 



It seems that a certain Viceroy, some years ago, 

 had become deeply enamoured of a celebrated ac- 

 tress, named La Perichole ; and as vice-monarch s, 

 like real monarchs, seldom sigh in vain. La Senora 

 Perichole soon became mistress of the palace, 

 where, besides spending large sums of the public 

 money, she succeeded in making her vice-regal ad- 

 mirer even more contemptible than he had been 

 before. Every request she chose to make was im- 

 mediately granted to her, except in one trifling 

 case : she therefore, of course, resolutely set her 

 heart upon attaining this object. Her whim was 



