South Sea Sketches Author:Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. LIMA. 0 Luxury of dress is a predominant passion in Lima. A system of free-trade, established in 1783, permitted unlimited intercourse betw... more »een Spain and certain ports of Peru. Callao and Arica being of the number designated. The result was from the first highly favorable, and a flourishing commerce, principally with England, has grown up. Many merchant ships still double Cape Horn, and bring the finest silks, velvets, linens, cutlery, glass-ware, superfine cloths, etc. It is extremely mortifying to a patriotic American that we have, so to speak, no commerce; and if we had we never could compete with this free-trade from Europe. Were it not for our navy we fear the Peruanos and, indeed, all South America would be blissfully unaware of our existence as a nation, for the English rule on this coast as to trade. At this time great amplitude of skirts are worn here, and the ladies trail their silks and fine satins through the filthy streets in a remorseless way that would even surprise our women of fashion at home. We ventured one day to offer a gentle expostulation on the subject, when we were instantly answered : " Of course our dresses cannot be worn but once or twice, nor do we desire to appear in them more often, no matter how costly or elaborate they may be!" The votaries of fashion are quite the same all the world over, and the modiste of Lima is just as giddy, reckless, and unreasonable, as her sister artiste in New York. We are not aware that freedom exists short of the Fijis. No, not even there, for we have seen the Fiji wig, which far transcends the present complicated coiffure. The streets of Lima are narrow, paved with the roughest, jagged stones; and the open gutters, called ezequias, run through their middle. The sidewalks are so narrow that i...« less