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282 THREE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC. 



soldiers are stationed in different parts of the pit, to enforce 

 order and prevent smoking, but the latter is so difficult a task, 

 that rather than run against the current of public opinion, they 

 join in the practice. 



The orchestra is generally very good, and sometimes excel- 

 lent ; during the period that the opera company remained in 

 Lima, it was much improved. The players are rather below 

 mediocrity, with one or two exceptions. Lately, an actress 

 from the Madrid boards, named Samaniego, has been here, and 

 were she not so very large and advanced in years, would cer- 

 tainly be an interesting player, particularly in tragedy. Her 

 children are also considered good. The actresses are generally 

 fat, shapeless, uninteresting creatures, who follow the prompter 

 in a most monotonous tone. The top of the prompter's cap 

 is seen moving, as his head turns to follow the lines of his 

 book, just above a wooden hood placed in the centre of the 

 stage ; and his voice is heard above all. There is one of the 

 actresses who sings very well, yet I am assured that she is to- 

 tally ignorant of music, depending altogether upon the correct- 

 ness of her ear. 



The plays generally represented, have the fault of a too pro- 

 tracted dialogue, with but little action, and are barren in plot. 

 The tragedies are wretched. I do not mean that all Spanish 

 tragedies are so, but allude to those represented in Lima. 

 There is one lately written by a native, founded on the early 

 history of the conquest, which possesses considerable merit. 

 The best part of the entertainment is in the farce or "sainete," 

 — pieces of one act, in which some ludicrous incident in low 

 life is presented. These are filled with proverbs, in which the 

 language abounds, and with humor, though too frequently of 

 a vulgar and indecent kind. There is one entitled El Santo, 

 which is w^hat the Spanish term ^'mui gracioso." A worthy 

 wife is represented as receiving visits of rather an improper 

 kind, from the sexton of the parish church, and in order to 

 conceal her lover, on the sudden arrival of her husband, he is 

 disguised and mounted on a table, where he assumes the atti- 

 tude of a saint. The husband enters, and finds his wife very 

 piously kneeling before it. Seeing her devotion, he joins her 



