Besides maize, which is more generally cultivated than wheat, the latter being to a considerable extent an article of importation from Chili and other foreign parts, the staple food of the poor on the coast is derived from the camote and yuca, both of which roots are exceedingly nutritive and wholesome; but, in Lima, animal food is consumed in very large quantity. The quantity of poultry used here is incalculable; and a good reason for this is, that the sick, infirm, and convalescent,—always exceedingly numerous in this capital, as well in public hospitals as in private houses,—think themselves neglected in their diet if they have not, at least once a day, chicken or chicken soup. Geese and ducks are in low reputation as articles of aliment; but of pigeons and turkeys there is always a large supply in the daily market, held under sheds in convenient parts of the town. Fish is usually good and plentiful,—the fishermen, by the way, furnishing the best specimen we have seen of a robust form in the Indian family. The number of fat pigs killed in the town has been, in the year 1835,—on occasion of imposing, for the support of the colleges, a duty of four reals, or about two shillings a-head, on each pig,—estimated considerably above twenty thousand yearly; and there is always so large a consumption of lard and fried pork, (“chicharones,”) that the trade of the “mantequero,” or lard and swine-dealer, is, after that of the baker and lottery-man, “suertero,” one of the most lucrative in the capital. From forty to fifty head of oxen, and from three to four hundred sheep, are slaughtered daily for the Lima market: the beef is very good; the mutton of inferior quality. We were told by one of the principal beef contractors that, early in the year 1836, the slaughter of oxen in Lima was reduced to thirty or thirty-five head daily; a decrease from the usual number which he ascribed to the poverty peculiar to that particular period of misrule, disabling many families from buying beef, and partly also to a new military order relating to the soldiers’ rations. Instead of his former allowance of meat, the soldier was now allowed two reals daily to provide for himself what food he pleased;—an injudicious alteration in his circumstances, for he either gave his ration-money for drink, or indulged his appetite in eating some unwholesome trash calculated to throw him too often on the sick-list. Pastry and sweet-meat criers are seen everywhere in the Lima streets; and a sort of cook-stand, abounding in fried pork and fish, is to be found at the corner of every square. This practice gives some insight into the dietetic habits of the vulgar; and such poor families of genteel pretensions as from necessity hire out their slaves, are seldom at the trouble or expense of cooking at home when they can more easily call in from the street what little they may satisfy themselves with.