CUSTOMS AND MANNERS. 



243 



our fellow-citizens say, if they were to see a being of this class 

 strive to imitate the women in every particular ? The air of 

 the body, the garb, the steps, the actions, even to the small- 

 est movements, every thing announces in them a contemp- 

 tible and extravagant effeminacy. The pains they take to 

 counterfeit feminine casualties are excessive. I know not whe- 

 ther the sight of one of these creatures would most move your * 

 indignation or your laughter. The wool* with which, in- 

 stead of hair, Nature has provided them, the one half being 

 brought into the finest tresses, is united in a knot, in such a 

 way as that the extremity forms a frizzled ball. Several small 

 curls, nicely disposed, fall on each side of the forehead, with- 

 out there being any deficiency of patches on the temples. The 

 open sleeves and deep ruffles, which leave the arm in a man- 

 ner bare ; the tread on the point of the toe ; the care taken 

 that the dress should swell out as much as possible behind ; all 

 these, and a thousand other little peculiarities, are employed 

 by them, as they dare not renounce altogether in -public the 

 male attire, to modify it to such a degree, as that the most 

 careless observer sees a man arrayed in the dress of both sexes. 

 Thus it is that they present themselves in this extravagant ar- 

 ray : one of the hands placed in the girdle ; the other muffled 

 up in the mantle, with a feminine air ; the head ere6t, and, 

 like a little mill, in constant motion, sometimes reclined on 

 one shoulder, and sometimes on the other. They measure 

 their steps as if with a compass, and make a thousand ridicu- 



•* This depravity appears to be most common, in Peru, to the blacks, and 

 people of colour ; or, perhaps, the writer found it necessary to give this turn to his 

 satire, to avoid offence to the higher classes. 



I i 2 lous 



