TTOTICE^ OF PERU. 



299 



On the seventeenth day of February 1833, commenced the 

 merry season of carnivaL The sports consist in dashing scented 

 water on each other, amongst those of the better class, but 

 %vith the others, whole buckets full are thrown, and when the 

 person is well wet, the face is smeared over with flour, some- 

 times colored with indigo. 



I passed part of the month of April at Miraflores, amusing 

 myself with rides round the country, and feasting on delicious 

 grapes. All the houses have gardens attached to them, where 

 are grown great varieties of beautiful flowers. A geranium 

 grows to a large bush, and is looked upon almost as a weed. 

 Amongst the bulbs, which are numerous, are the margarita, a 

 white flower, the amancaes, which is yellow, and the flor de 

 la pila. This takes its name from its resemblance to a fountain. 

 The flower is beautifully white, and the monopetalous corolla 

 has six long slender digits, which fall in gentle curves from 

 its edge, like so many little streams of water. It springs up 

 on the margins of drains and ditches, all along the Peruvian 

 coast. 



The ladies in Miraflores pass two or three hours of Saturday 

 afternoon seated on the tapias along the Chorillos road, ob- 

 serving the passing concourse. One half of ^' pascua" or lent 

 expired on the 28th of April 1832. This day is celebrated 

 amongst the rabble by feasting and dancing. Parties with 

 guitars and harps pass through the streets at night, visiting 

 the best houses, dancing and singing, till bribed by a gra- 

 tuity to leave. At midnight, a grotesque mask, representing 

 an old woman, leaves Lima mounted on a borrico, accompa- 

 nied by a crowd of negroes and boys, shouting and singing and 

 ringing bells. The party or procession stops long enough in 

 Miraflores to waken the population, and then continues on to 

 Chorillos, where the old woman is met and kindl}'^ received 

 by an old man, quite as grotesquely dressed as the old lady 

 herself. The two open the dance in a lascivious minuet, and 

 then the frolic is continued till daylight. This feast is termed 

 La vieja, or old woman. She is quite as much feared by the 

 children as old Chriskingle himself, for the old people are wont 

 to say, that La vieja is coming at four in the morning to carry 



