Lima is in the tropics. Its fruits and flowers are those of the tropics. Yet it is neither hot nor cold. There is no rain and not too much sun, a pleasant monotony interrupted only by earthquakes. An umbrella merchant once tried to set up business in Lima. His act brought forth an article in a local paper on rain, and how on one occasion when it came suddenly people had to get out of bed to find secure places. Editorials on umbrellas followed. No, there is little to fear from changes of weather, not even thunder and lightning. There is an endless summer, with streets under a continuous awning; yet, after all, only a summer. The rainless desert is soaked in mist all winter long. It falls suddenly like a veil over the bare mountains and drenches the sunlight. A glimpse through it shows a faint sheen, sharp cliffs hazy with hues of light-green velvet, enameled on closer inspection with multitudes of differing flowers. _Amancaes_ spring up dew-laden, those queer, greenish-yellow lilies hanging on smooth, leafless stems, giving their name to whole valleys which they fill. One such lies beyond the gardens of the Barefoot Friars. A favorite retreat for Limaneans, it is called the National Garden. But scorpions lie under the stones. * * * * * “A suggestive kind of picture used to hang in many a mediaeval church. It was painted on both sides of a board. On one side were a pair of lovers walking hand in hand in a meadow gay with spring. Flowers blossomed about their feet; birds sang in the trees above their heads. “On the reverse was the grim figure of Death, hour-glass and scythe in hand. The thing, pendent from a single cord, hung free in a draughty place, and the air twisted it about hither and thither, so that one side and the other was seen in swift interchange.” The Alameda, flanked with Norfolk Island pines and marble benches, had in other days rows upon rows of orange trees, stone fountains, and basins as well. At five in the afternoon gilded carriages streamed from palace gardens, driving about so that their fair occupants could greet their friends. Four thousand brocade-lined, gold-trimmed carriages and innumerable chaises shimmered through the heavy odor of orange blossoms. A traveler of the seventeenth century has described the lady of Lima, clad not in linen, but in the most expensive lace of Flanders, slipped over an underdress of cloth of gold. [Illustration: GRAPES RAISED BY THE BAREFOOT FRIARS, (_LOS DESCALZOS_), LIMA.]