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Writing Type: Book
Letter in which he describes a stay in the house of M. Perichón, brother of Viceroy Liniers´s mistress. He describes life in Corrientes, custom and dress.
Keywords: Corrientes society, women, dress, Perichón
Publisher: AMS Press Inc., New York
Archive: University of Warwick Library
Location Details: Volume 1, pp.252-257.
Text: Letter to J - G, Corrientes from the house of M. Perichón, brother of Madame O’Gorman, mistress of the then Viceroy of Buenos Aires, Liniers.
p.252
When my travelling cortège drew up in front of the house, and I delivered my credentials from his sister, I was received with the utmost cordiality. As a matter of course, M. Perichon´s house be came, for the time being, my own.
At the time of my arrival, the heat was all but insupportable. Not a soul was to be seen in the streets of loose and burning sand. The cows, which wander tip and down these streets during the morning and evening, were melting under the trees, or seeking shelter from the sun on the shady side of the tall prickly pear hedges, which enclose the gardens or folds attached to the houses. The fowls and other feathered tribes were panting among the branches. Even the buzzing mosquito was still; and the only tenant of the air abroad was the restless butterfly. I was nearly dead from thirst and beat, and covered with dust from top to toe. The horses, as we dismounted, hung down their heads, and were bathed in sweat. They breathed hard and fast, showing every symptom of thorough exhaustion.
The houses in Corrientes (especially the better (p.253) class of them) are built with lofty and capacious corridors, and upon a considerable elevation. The inhabitants have thus both shade and air and it will take no persuasion to convince those who have been in hot climates, what luxuries these are. But these luxuries are enjoyable in summer only very early in the morning, and after siesta hours in the evening. From ten o'clock A.M. till five P.M,. the houses are shut up and darkened as much as possible, in order to exclude the burning air and glare of light which then prevail. A little mitigation is thus procured of the intense heat of that part of the day. The family, in their hours of retirement, throw off, as regards dress, all restraint, and all effort as regards work. Expecting no visitants, and not standing on ceremony if they come, the inmates of the house doff their upper garments, and walk about, the women in a chemise and petticoat, with a loose kerchief about the neck; the men in an open breasted shirt and trousers, the sleeves of the former rolled up to the elbows. They either swing in their hammocks, walk in listlessness, or flap themselves with fans made of straw.
At the house of the post master general, I found (p.254) the inmates all cloistered after this fashion ; and the great room in which they were about to sit down to dinner had to me, who had just come out from under the fiery rays of the sun, all the appearance of total darkness. But the large folding door, which conducted into the patio, shaded with orange trees, having been partially opened, my eyes recovered their powers of vision; and there they fell on a domestic circle of a truly primeval appearance. M. Perichon, who had entered before me, was reading my letter, with a half naked child on either arm. On the estrada, or raised part of the floor, covered with a straw mat, sat three ladies, whom I afterwards found to be his wife, and two sisters in law, one married, the other not. With a child on his arm, Perichon's brother in law, a remarkable gigantic and fine figure, walked about the room. A female mulatto slave, of beautiful form and features, was rocking a cradle, in which a baby was sobbing aloud; and three other slaves were bringing in dinner, and laying it on an unwieldy timber-table, covered, however, with a rich cotton cloth of the country manufacture. A large earthen jar of water, and abundance of horse furniture, stood (p.255) in a corner of the room; several maté cups, a bottle of aguardiente (spirits), and wine glasses were on a side table; all parties had been smoking and all were in family dishabille. I was once more cordially welcomed by Perichon; and by the ladies with a profusion of compliments, of which I understood not more than half. For here, the language of the aborigines, or Guaranis, has superseded, in a great measure, the Spanish, and, excepting the better classes of men, few speak that language with either fluency or propriety. The females almost invariably speak it with difficulty and dislike, preferring much the Guarani idiom, in which they are very eloquent. It is accompanied, however, with a tone and twang which render it anything but musical.
Dinner was a little delayed: I refreshed myself with copious ablutions and libations, and sat down to the usual sumptuous and abundant fare, quite "en famille." The custom in Corrientes, instead of dressing for dinner, is to undress for it; and if any one wishes to know how much this breach of the European custom is better than the observance, let him go to a country in 26 degrees latitude, and sit down there to dinner, of a summer's noon.
p.256
After dinner followed the siesta, which instead of being here slept, as in Santa Fé and Buenos Ayres, on a bed, is enjoyed in a magnificent hammock. This hammock is woven of fine cotton; it is eight feet long, five in breadth, and in the middle is worked with stitches so large as to admit the air at every aperture. It is gorgeously fringed, all round the edges; and it is hung so as to subtend an angle of the room. A silken cord or ribbon is put into your hands; by the pulling of which you swing at a curve as ample as you please. You soon fall asleep, and sink into oblivion of the melting atmosphere in which you are. Then, when you awake, come the cigar and the maté, or the coffee. They are handed to you, while yet in your hammock, by a female domestic. The female mulatto slaves are particularly handsome in Corrientes; their dress is as white as snow, simple as their habits. and after providing for decency, is airy and light. in compliance with the demands of the climate. The bosom is merely covered by a chemise; and the contour of it, without the aid of stays, is exhibited simply by this chemise being tied round the waist by a gaily coloured band. Slaves and (p.257) the lower class of white females go invariably without shoes or stockings: they keep their small feet and ankles scrupulously clean; and in this process they are materially aided by the sandy soil of their native land, and by the springs and brooks which intersect it. The well turned arms are left bare nearly from the shoulder downwards; and the long dark hair is simply braided back from the forehead and gathered up with a comb behind. This is the house dress. The addition to it, when the women go out, is a manta, or scarf, still. of white cotton cloth, and which, being pinned to the hair on the top of the head, is crossed over the bosom, and left to hang loosely on the body.
Yours, &c.
J. P. R.
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Trent Building, University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD
telephone: +44 (0)115 951 5655
email: Catherine.davies@nottingham.ac.uk