outlandish manner. One of the lower grade wears a very
capacious shovel hat, projecting as much in front as behind, and
looking very like a double-ended coal-heaver's _hat_. A loose
black serge robe covers him all over, as with a funereal pall,
and being fastened together only at the neck, gives to his often
obese figure an appearance the very reverse of grave or serious:
The superior of a monastery, or the priest in charge of a parish,
wears a more stately clerical costume. His hat is of formidable
dimensions--a huge, flat, Chinese-umbrella-shaped sort of a
concern, which cannot be compared to anything else in creation.
He also affects ruffles and lace, a long cassock, and a
voluminous cloak like many of those of Geneva combined together;
black silk stockings and low shoes complete the clerical array of
the higher ecclesiastics."

[Illustration: RIDING AND FULL-DRESS COSTUME OF THE PERUVIAN
LADIES.]

Quite as odd, in their way, as these good padres, are the
Peruvian loungers, the "lions" of Lima--a long-haired, becloaked,
truculent-looking set of fellows, whose proper place would seem
to be among operatic banditti. A greater contrast and disparity
than exists between them and the beautiful brunettes to whom they
are fain to devote themselves, cannot well be imagined. That the
latter generally prefer European gentlemen to these ill-favored
beaux, follows as a matter of course. That the discarded "lion"
resents this preference of his fair countrywomen, we have the
testimony of the traveler already quoted from.

"Instinctively, as it were, a feeling of dislike and rivalry
seemed to prevail between ourselves and such of these truculent
gentry as it was our fortune to come into contact with. They were
jealous, no doubt, of the wandering foreigners, whom they chose
contemptuously to term _gringos_, but who, they know well
enough, are infinitely preferred to themselves by their handsome
coquettish countrywomen. It is, indeed, notoriously the fact,
that any respectable man of European birth can marry well, and
even far above his own social position, amongst the dark-eyed
donnas of Peru. The men don't seem exactly to like it. Judging by
their appearance, we found but little difficulty in believing the
character which report had given them--namely, their proneness to
assassination, especially in love affairs, either personally,
or, more frequently, by deputy. If the brilliant creole and
half-caste women of this warm, trop