MEN OF LIMA. 



J 87 



disposicion" — this house is at your disposal or 

 disposition. During my stay in the city I had 

 many roses presented to me by some of the love- 

 liest and fairest of its daughters. There is very 

 little social intercourse amonsgt the families ; petty 

 jealousies being carried very high. On this ac- 

 count foreign residents associate very little with 

 them. ^^A u contraire^^^ at Buenos Ayres : there the 

 intercourse is very great^ and the society very 

 agreeable^ which the many intermarriages that 

 have taken place plainly proves. The men of Lima 

 appear to be a different race from all others I 

 met with in South America^ for they are dirty and 

 indolent to an amazing degree: smoking from 

 morning till night. Having frequent occasion 

 to attend the public offices, I always found them 

 filled with smoke, and the floors disgustingly 

 dirty, from the continued spitting of the officers 

 and clerks. I have seen officers holding the high- 

 est situations sitting smoking at their desks with 

 a shirt on that would disgrace a chimney-sweep, 

 and their beards generally of a week^s growth, 

 to say nothing of their hands, which are al- 



