come acquainted with their domestic
manners will declare that conjugal and paternal affection, filial piety,
beneficence, generosity, good nature, and hospitality are the inmates of
almost every house. I have no doubt, too, that these virtues will
continue here, until civilization and refinement shall drive them from
their abode in the New World, to make room for etiquette, formality,
becoming pride, prudery, and hypocrisy from the Old. Then, the children
of the first families in Lima (whom I have often seen rise from the
table and carry a plateful of food to a poor protege beggar, seated in
the patio or under the corridor, wait and chat with the little wretch
until he had finished, and return to the table) will look on such
objects with disdain, because mamma has subscribed a competent sum to a
charitable institution and made that sum known to the world through the
medium of the newspapers! I cannot avoid fearing that this modern
improvement will supersede their own pure but almost antiquated
customs."

This, written about 1825, is a severe arraignment of the blessings of
our civilization; but it is also a sincere compliment to the character
of South American women and so is worth quoting. Fond of pleasures the
South American senorita and even senora has always been; but such
fondness, however indicative of volatility of temperament and lack of
depth of nature, is not incompatible with many of the virtues which are
held in high esteem among women. Another thing worthy of note in the
words of our sarcastic critic is the reference to the disappearance,
even at that date, of the more characteristic customs of South American
ladies. A later visitor to Chile and Peru tells us that the young
senoritas often denied that they practised smoking, whereas we know from
other travellers that but a short time prior to that period it was
considered the height of courtesy for the South American lady to
transfer to the lips of her male companion the cigarette moist from her
own. Eating sweetmeats from the same plate was also common at one time,
in fact, down to the beginning of the last century, among South American
ladies and gentlemen; they even sucked mate, the native tea, from a
single tube. These characteristic customs have long since passed away,
and now the Spanish-American lady sedulously apes her European
contemporaries in tastes, dress, and customs. She has retained but
little of the individuality which once marked her nation