agreeable these gallantries may be to the _Creole_ Spaniards, they
have an inconvenient effect on society; as the men are so engrossed
by these matters, as to spoil all public conversation. Their time is
entirely taken up in attendance on their mistresses, so that there are
no coffee-houses or taverns, and they can only be met with at their
offices, or in church.

Perhaps it may be chiefly owing to this effeminate propensity, that
all manly exercises, all useful knowledge, and that noble emulation
which inspires virtue, and keeps alive respect for the public good,
are here unknown. Those amusements which serve in other countries to
relax the labours of the industrious, and to keep alive the vigour of
the body and mind, are unknown in Peru; and whoever should attempt to
introduce any such, would be considered as an innovator, which, among
them, is a hateful character: For they will never be convinced, that
martial exercises or literary conferences are preferable to intrigues.
They have, however, a sort of a play-house, where the young gentlemen
and students divert themselves after their fashion; but their dramatic
performances are so mean as hardly to be worth mentioning, being
scripture stories, interwoven with romance, a mixture still worse than
gallantry. At this theatre, two Englishmen belonging to the squadron
of Mons. Martinat, fought a prize-battle a short time before I came
to Lima. Having first obtained leave of the viceroy to display their
skill at the usual weapons, and the day being fixed, they went through
many previous ceremonies, to draw, as the phrase is, a good house.
Preceded by beat of drum, and dressed in holland shirts and ribbons,
they went about the streets saluting the spectators at the windows
with flourishes of their swords, so that the whole city came to see
the trial of skill, some giving gold for admittance, and hardly any
one less than a dollar. The company, male and female, being assembled,