If we consider all things in the circumstances of the Peruvians, their story from first to last must awaken an interest in the mind of every inquirer into their past and present state, rather than dispose him to censure them indiscriminately for their errors. We may indeed wonder not to find fewer good qualities among them; and, on the other hand, not to see the fiercer passions that utterly brutalize human nature, and agitate every corner of society, more called into action among a medley of ignorant and discordant castes, passing without adequate preparation from one extreme of government to another, and from one civil broil into another of greater confusion and misrule. But, as we have already had occasion to mention, there is among the entire mass of the people a natural aptness to please by a happy address; and no one can witness the external graces of the more enlightened and better classes, who are daily engaged in their customary rounds of social and courteous attentions, without desiring that these qualities, at least, should survive the overthrow of whatever is pernicious to a healthy state of society. CHAPTER VII. Religious prejudices.—No faith with heretics.—Corpse of an Englishman cast into the street by the pious mob.—English supposed to have been buried with money in the island of San Lorenzo.—New cemetery, and Latin inscription for the English burial-ground.—Religious disadvantages of the British in Peru. Among a people who suffer so large a privation of moral discipline as the Peruvians, we naturally look for a corresponding prevalence of religious prejudices. Some years ago, when we lived in one of the most delightful climates in the interior of Peru, we were greatly annoyed by our neighbours of the two beautiful villages Ambo and Tomay-quichoa. The inhabitants of the former would insist that we drove from the estate of Andaguaylla, upon which we resided, the worshipful saints, (little painted images dressed in gaudy rags,) and withdrew the workmen, or “yanacones,”[11] from their little gods and religion. It was not till after we were accused by the alcalde of Ambo of being a kind of demon or goblin, that the people of the estate were scared into horror and desertion; or that we found out, through the kindness of our Spanish major-domo, that the alarmed men, women, and children on the estate had over-night rescued the saints from supposed danger, by piously carrying them away to a town about four leagues distant. Next morning we were left with only one workman; and he, being an old and maimed soldier, had but one hand.