Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

Extract of a letter from a young Kentuckian, in South America, to his friend in Lexington, dated

Lima, March 1, 1817.

"The splendor of the palace of the vice-roy in this place is not equal to what I had expected to find it; but the magnificence of the churches is far beyond my powers of description. On the altar of one of the churches, called La Merced, it is said there are gold and silver to the amount of no less than a million of dollars. A crown piece to the Virgin Mary, in another church, cost thirty thousand dollars. Churches, convents, &c. without number. There are also some there edifices of considerable size; but all the labor, riches and taste appear to have been spent upon the churches. In the public squares, convents, etc. there are copper fountains continually spouting fine fresh water. In all the streets running east and west, there is a canal of water which adds very much to the cleanliness of the city. Lima contains a population of about sixty thousand inhabitants composed of ten or twelve thousand Spaniards, and the rest Indians, negroes, and the innumerable mixtures between them and the whites. The climate is the most delightful you can imagine: it is a continued spring the whole year round; between the coldest and the warmest weather the thermometer does not vary more than 16 degrees. Every species of fruit grows here in perfection throughout the year; we have at our table, every day, delightful apples, peaches, oranges, and pine-apples. It never rains and only two or three instances of its ever having thundered or lightened here, are recorded in the history of this place; on which occasion the citizens ran distracted into the country, knelt before their Maker, and in the sincerity of their hearts, begged forgiveness in what they considered as the harbinger of universal dissolution. Earthquakes here produce the most horrid sensations. Callao, the seaport of Lima, about forty miles distant, was entirely destroyed about forty years ago, in one of any degree of violence, which occur oftener than one in twenty or thirty years, but what they call tremblers, are almost as common as rain in Kentucky.

There has been one of these since my arrival, and it was taken notice of with about one half the concern I have seen excited on a farm in the U. States by the flying of a hawk over a hen roost. In consequence of the earthquakes, the houses have no roofs, such as ours: long strips of wood are laid flat upon the top of the wall, and on them a layer of ashes half an inch thick and this is sufficient to preserve them from the weather, as they never have more than a thick fog, which cannot penetrate their slight roofs. The want of roofs to the houses, gives them a very awkward appearance, and if they were black on the outside instead of white, a stranger arriving from Europe would think that the city had been destroyed by fire. The mildness of the climate and the richness of the soil, have all tended to enervate the inhabitants; on the men it has had the effect to make them weak and indolent in the extreme. The Spaniards smoke cigars and only exert themselves as far as it is necessary to keep the others in subjection. Perhaps to these causes, which have had such an evil effect on the men, may be attributed the surprising beauty of the women. It is a surprising thing indeed to meet with a young woman that has not the most regular features, fine black eyes, and pretty shape. Their dress is singular, and is almost the first thing that strikes the attention of a foreigner: the stuff of which their outer petticoat is made, is worked in such a manner that it has the elasticity of stockinet: it is belted tight round the waist and fits the body as close as possible, so much so that they can only take very short and deliberate steps, and causes them to reel from one side to the other like a sailor. They do not wear bonnets; an apron of black silk, open before, drawn backwards over the head and arm, covers every thing from the waist up but one eye. Their feet are handsome and extremely small, of which they appear to be conscious; they take pains to show them, and scarcely a young woman of any description is seen in the streets without silk shoes and stockings. They marry at twelve and thirteen; and at fifteen and twenty they are old, ugly, and not fit to be looked at."