of remark, that even on this momentous occasion, the spirit-stirring 6th of January 1836, the patrician youth—“los hijos de familia”—took no active part. Educated with the utmost tenderness of indulgence, they are more inclined to love than arms. In short, the business of their life is pleasure. Until the last memorable rally and sanguinary struggle at Socabaya, near Arequipa, under that Limenian _lusus naturæ_, General Felipe Santiago Salaverry, the military name of the Patriot officers of Peru had been rapidly sinking into utter contempt. By far the greater number of their spirited and intelligent country-women decried the turncoat fraternity, and regretted that they themselves were not born to carry arms, that they might redeem the fallen honour of their country. These degenerate officers seemed to take pleasure in calling every now and then the attention of the public to their vile “pronunciamientos,” or open abjuration of honourable allegiance to those placed in just authority over them. Such vain and faithless vaunters, whose proudest achievements were but to forsake their duty, bind their chiefs, and desolate their native land, became the objects of public scorn, and were despised even by the softer sex, as being fitter to wield the distaff than the sword. But Salaverry, a man of vast though ill-directed energy and reckless spirit, made the sky re-echo to his shout of war to the death! And such complete ascendency did he acquire over the minds of his countrymen, by his almost insane impetuosity and appalling executions,[31] that he not only constrained them to a state of awe and submission, but, what is more remarkable, inspired them, when he pleased, with martial ardour, and made them emulate the deeds of Zepita, Junin, and Ayacucho. During the gloomy reign of the black banner, and continuance of the revolution of Salaverry, the Limenian women, uneasy beneath the accumulating evils of political oppression, made their way into the ranks of the insurgents. Disguised in their mysterious “mantos,” they circulated patriotic proclamations, and whispered abroad the low and solemn murmur of public opinion; until at length, on the famous 6th of January 1836, when the populace rushed to the walls, it was shouted aloud from every mouth,—ay, the cannon’s mouth,—to the confusion of rapacious upstarts struggling for ascendency. And still the women played their part—as they raised the whirlwind, so they rode on it; for, without any metaphor, they were to be seen armed and on horseback amidst the crowd.