FEMALE POLITICIANS. 127 



and afterwards rode with him to see the lines 

 thrown up for the purpose of keeping off the 

 Spaniards, should they, as was apprehended, make 

 a descent upon Guayaquil from Quito. Such ir- 

 regular and hastily constructed means of defend- 

 ing an open town are held, I believe, in no great 

 respect by military men : yet the moral influence 

 of such undertakings may nevertheless, as in this 

 instance, prove beneficial. It may have the ef- 

 fect of making the people who erect them, believe 

 themselves in earnest ; and thus, by uniting them 

 in a common work, give them confidence in one 

 another^s sincerity ; a feeling which, if properly 

 guided, may be rendered a great deal more formi- 

 dable than the artificial defences themselves. 



In the evening a party of ladies assembled at 

 our friend's house, but as they arranged them- 

 selves in two lines facing one another, in a narrow 

 verandah, it became impossible to pass either be- 

 tween or behind them. At length I discovered a 

 little window, which looked out from the drawing- 

 room into the verandah, near the middle of the 

 station taken up in this determined manner by the 



ladies. By this time they were all speaking at 

 11 



