CUSTOMS AND MANNERS. 



231 



soms of a small fruit, a kind of strawberry, but larger in 

 size. Having been sprinkled with a water of a common scent, 

 or with a spirituous solution of amber, this puchero is valued 

 at half a real. 



The diiFerent aggregates, such as the blossoms of the little 

 orange of Quito, of the apricot, of the small apples which 

 have an amber colour, of the larger fruits, and of the med- 

 lar, together with the chirimoya*, carnations, gillyflowers, 

 anemones, tulips, and other flowers in full season, being 

 conjoined with a puchero of double or treble the size of the 

 simple one, augment its price to two or three piastres. Its 

 value is raised or diminished, in proportion to the private fes- 

 tivities which are on foot, and to the times of the public fes- 

 tivals. 



To the augmentation of value above-mentioned, is to be 

 superadded the' price of the flower named ariruma, which is 

 so arbitrary, that it rises from six reals to six or seven piastres, 

 according to the season, or to the demands of the pur- 

 chasers. Artificial flowers of this description having been 

 recently introduced, have in some measure diminished the 

 value of the natural ones. It is, however, to be noticed, 

 that the puchero of natural flowers is to be procured at every 

 season of the year, there being simply a variation of the 

 more exquisite flowers, which, for want of a proper de- 

 gree of skill in the culture, are not at all times obtain- 

 able. 



This indispensable luxury is purchased by all the different 

 classes of females, in a street fronting the steps of the cathe- 



* A flower of mean appearance, but of excjuisite scent. — Ulloa. 



dral 



