82 



PERU. 



swept away by the torrent of innovation ; and of 

 being sacrificed, sometimes to public policy, and 

 not unfrequently, perhaps, to individual ill-will, 

 avarice, or ambition. That things in South Ame- 

 rica can ever, by any chance, revert to the melan- 

 choly state they formerly were in, is impossible ; 

 that they will upon the whole improve, is equal- 

 ly manifest : in the meanwhile, notwithstanding 

 this conviction, it is difficult, when on the spot, to 

 see only the good, and to shut our eyes to the suf- 

 ferings which the country is exposed to, in its pre- 

 sent fiery ordeal. 



14ith. — In the evening there was a play, but 

 the people we had been wont to see there before 

 the Revolution were all gone ; and their places oc- 

 cupied by Chilian officers, and by English, Ame- 

 rican, and French merchants, together with num- 

 berless pretty Limenas, a race who smile on all 

 parties alike. The actors were the same, and the 

 play the same, but everything else — dress, man- 

 ners, language, were different : even the invete- 

 rate custom of smoking in the theatre had been 

 abolished by a public decree. 



Sunday^ 16th of Dec. — The ceremony of in- 



