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Writing Type: Diary
Published in three volumes. Parts one and two are about Latin America, part three describes a voyage to China and Indonesia. Hall cites Robinson’s account of his time in Mexico, and mentions that Iturbide was in England from the end of 1823 to 11 May 1824. Description of the land, society and political situation in the early 1820s.
Keywords: Mexico, Chile, Peru, independence, saya, mantle, women's guile
Publisher: Edward Moxon, Dover Street, London.
Archive: John Rylands Library
Text: Captain Basil Hall, R.N., F.R.S., Extracts from a Journal Written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico in the Years 1820, 1821, 1822, Edward Moxton, Dover Street, London, 1840.
Extract from chapter V, The Saya and Manto, pp.23-25.
The domestic manners of the society here differ from those of Chili, almost as much as the dresses. Instead of meeting at balls, concerts, and tertulias or parties, the women associate very little with one another; there are few dances, very little music, and, except at the bullfights or the play, and sometimes in the country, the ladies seldom assemble together. But they are all extremely regular in their attendance upon mass: indeed, the women in these countries form the congregations almost exclusively. At the houses where we called in the morning, we usually found the ladies dressed very gaily to receive visitors : that is, male visitors, for we seldom met any but the ladies of the house on these occasions. In the evening, the same thing generally takes place ; and our chance of meeting the gentlemen of the family, had we wished it, was always least at their own home.
In the cool part of the day, for about an hour and a half before sunset, the ladies walk abroad, dressed in a manner as far as I know unique, and certainly highly characteristic of the spot. This dress consists of two parts, one called the Saya, the other the Manto. The first is a petticoat made to fit so tightly that, being at the same time quite elastic, the form of the limbs is rendered distinctly visible. The manto, or cloak, is also a petticoat, but, instead of hanging about the heels, m all honest petticoats ought to do, it is drawn over the head, breast, and face; and is kept so close by the hands, which it also conceals, that no part of the body, except one eye, and sometimes only a small portion of one eye, is perceptible. A rich coloured handkerchief, or a silk band and tassel, are frequently tied round the waist, and hang nearly to the ground in front. A rosary, also, made of beads of ebony, with a small gold cross, is often fastened to the girdle, a little on one side ; though in general it is suspended from the neck.
The effect of the whole is exceedingly striking but whether its gracefulness for, with the fine figure of the Lima women, and their very beautiful style of walking, this dress is eminently graceful be sufficient to compensate for its indelicacy to an European eye, will depend much upon the stranger's taste, and his habits of judging of what he sees in foreign countries. Some travellers insist upon forcing everything into comparison with what they have left at home, and condemn or approve, according as this unreasonable standard is receded from or adhered to. To us, who took all things as we found them, the saya and manto afforded much amusement. and sometimes not a little vexation. It happened occasionally, that we were spoken to in the streets by ladies, who appeared to know us well, but whom we could not discover, till some apparently trivial remark in company long afterwards betrayed the Tapadas, as they call themselves. Ladies of the first rank indulge in this amusement, and will wear the meanest saya, or stoop to any contrivance to effect a thorough disguise. I myself knew two young ladies who completely deceived their brother and me, although we were aware of their fondness for such pranks, and I had even some suspicions of them at the very moment. Their superior dexterity, however, was more than a match for his discernment, or my suspicions ; and so completely did they deceive our eyes, and mislead our thoughts, that we could scarcely believe our senses, when they at length chose to discover themselves.
Lima has been described as the “Heaven of women, the purgatory of men, and the hell of jackasses,” and so, perhaps, it may be in times of peace ; but the war had now broken down such distinctions, and all parties looked equally miserable; or if any one had the advantage, it was the donkeys, who from the absence of all business were, for the first time in their lives, exempted from labour. The men were miserable from unwonted privation, apprehended loss of fortune, and wounded national pride. But the ladies, however annoyed by these circumstances, in common with the rest of the world, still maintained their prerogative of having their own way ; a right which, when acting in co operation with the impenetrable disguise of the saya and manto. give to manners a tone and character that way be imagined, but cannot well be described. Neither would it be fair for a passing and busy visitor, like myself, with his thoughts and attention occupied by other objects, to give general opinions upon the habits of a great city. But even had our opportunities and leisure been greater, the moment was singularly unpropitious, since scarcely any circumstance in society occupied its wonted place. Even in families, the effect of the times was deeply felt: a particular view of politics was adopted by one member, the opposite by another; some acted from principle, some from interest, others from fear ; thus sincerity and confidence were banished, just at the moment when the pressure of the war was most urgent, and when a cordial union was the only safeguard against the ruin and misery of the whole house.
Had my attention been less occupied in preserving a prudent and circumspect line of conduct, I might, undoubtedly, have noticed many incidents, which, if properly described, would have served to characterise the singular state of Lima at the moment: but this being impossible, I could only hope to catch occasionally some minute though. sufficiently portentous symptoms of the times.
We of course paid our respects to the venerable Archbishop of Peru, who professed himself much attached to the English, and entertained us with a discourse on the advantages of free commerce, and the just exercise of other civil rights. This surely was ominous. From the Archbishop's palace, we crossed the square to an old lady's house, whom we found, as well as her daughter, in deep grief. The cause we did not inquire ; having for some days known, although it had been concealed from her, that her son. who had betrayed his allegiance to his king, and gone over to the Patriots, had been taken prisoner, and shot as a traitor. This also belonged to the times.
On the same day a lady applied to me for a passage to Chili, where her husband then was, a prisoner of war: she had succeeded, she said, after much trouble, in obtaining permission from the Government to leave Lima ; for such were the suspicions of every one, that even a wife's motives for joining her husband in prison were looked upon with distrust, and made matter of long debate in council. So little accustomed of late was the poor woman to being treated with any confidence or consideration, that when I frankly promised her a passage, she could scarcely believe it possible, and burst into tears.
Very different tears, I suspect, were shed by another lady whom we called upon immediately afterwards. News had just arrived of her husband, the Marquis of Torre Taglé (afterwards a leading public character,) having gone over from the Royalist cause to that of the Patriots, while she, good lady, remained in the power of the Royalists. Both she and her husband being natives of Lima, and persons of wealth and high rank, their politics had long been suspected to have a tendency to the Independent cause, which offered to persons so situated a great increase of fortune and consequence ; and many people deemed the fair lady's sorrow was not so deeply seated as her tears implied. But hypocrisy was the ruling sin of the hour.
I dined one day with a party of gentlemen at a pleasant country house in Miraflores, a fashionable bathing place, six miles south of Lima. Villas and ornamented cottages were thickly scattered around us, but instead of being filled with company, as in times of peace, no one was now to be seen, although this was the height of the season: the sea broke idly on the beach without wetting the feet of a single bather ; not a guitar. nor a song, nor the merry sound of a dance, was heard in any of the bowers or shady verandahs ; no lively groups were seated on the neat stone benches, tastefully fitted up round the houses ; and the fine shady gravel walks in the numerous gardens round the villas were quite deserted, and all running into weeds. The gay multitude, who formerly gave animation to this spot, were now drawn into the capital the only place where they could feel secure and where they derived, or sought to derive, a melancholy consolation from companionship ; and soon forgot, in the pressure of want and the immediate apprehension of violence, those enjoyments once deemed absolute necessaries of life.
From the highest to the lowest person in society, every one felt the increasing evils that, crowded round the sinking state. Actual want had already begun to pinch the poor ; the loss of almost every comfort affected the next in rank ; and luxuries of all kinds were discarded from the tables of the highest class. Military contributions were heavily exacted from the moneyed men ; the merchants lost their commerce; the shop keepers their wonted supplies. Even the Viceroy himself held his power by no enviable tenure ; being surrounded by a suspicious and turbulent population, and by an army, to whose criminal insubordination alone he owed his authority. The city was invaded by a cautious and skilful general on land, and blockaded by an enterprising commander at sea ; and to wind up the evils of this ill fated city, many of those men from whose steady and sincere support much might have been expected, were wasting their time in useless reproaches and recriminations.
Two years antecedent to this period, when an attack from Chili was first seriously apprehended, it had been suggested by some clear sighted individuals, that the trade of Lima should be thrown open ; whereby the treasury, filled by the increased receipts of the customs, would be able to meet the, expenses of a defensive war. As these very persons were amongst the number who derived the greatest benefit from the existing monopoly, it was much to the credit of their sagacity, that they foresaw more ample personal profits from a fair competition, than from their portion of monopoly. Simple and effectual as the above proposal seemed, as far as the immediate security of the state was concerned, the local authorities hesitated to adopt it without licence from Spain : every one acquainted with the subject foresaw the issue of an appeal to that quarter, on a question of free colonial trade. In the meantime. the Chilian squadron put an end to the discussion by enforcing the celebrated Spanish Code, the Laws of the Indies, as to the Lima trade : the port was blockaded, and the treasury remained empty. The consequent bitter reproaches and taunts, now that they were too late, took a still more virulent character from the state of affairs ; so that these and similar topics were discussed in a temper little suited to lead, even in theory, to useful conclusions ; still less to that practical cordiality so essential to the welfare of the state, at such a moment.
These ruinous dissensions were still further fomented by the new spirit of independence, which, early in the campaign, pervaded the country, but had not heretofore attained the same height in Lima as in other parts of South America; owing, perhaps, to its containing a far greater proportion of Old Spaniards of wealth and consequence. Be the cause what it may, the vigilance of Government had hitherto succeeded in keeping down the expression of such feelings ; but now this was no longer possible, and every day raised the hopes, and added to the numbers, of the Independent party.
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