There is a certain isolation about Lima, due to its geographical position. The other large towns of the Republic are separated from it by vast stretches of desert and Cordillera, and the railways give access to but a few points, whilst any interruption of the steamer lines along the coast cuts it off from the outside world. However, its picturesque watering-places and well-built residential suburbs extend the amenities of Lima over a wider zone. The upper-class folk of Peru, as we behold them in their capital and other large towns, have the pleasing traits of courtesy and hospitality we are accustomed to associate with their race in marked degree. They are extremely eloquent, and aim at a high standard of civilization--that sensitive characteristic of the Spanish American. Their women have justly earned a world-wide reputation for their beauty and vivacity, their good breeding and culture, as well as their piety and high standard of family life. If the hand of semi-mediaeval custom still hampers Peru in its social customs, this is a matter which time constantly modifies. All parts of Spain furnished the ancestors of the Peruvians--Basque, Catalonian, Andalusian, Galician, and Castillian names being encountered among them, and in viceregal days there were many titles of nobility, which fell into disuse on the advent of the Republic. Nevertheless, it is an amiable weakness of the Peruvians--as it is of many other Latin American folk--to love titles, as we see by the so frequent use of the doctorate degree. In a Peruvian Cabinet, it would be rare to discover a minister who is not addressed as "Doctor"--of laws or science--for the degree is often taken in Latin America largely as conferring some social distinction, and not necessarily with the purpose of practising this or that profession. Yet in justice to the Peruvians it must be said that they are clever professional men, whether at law, medicine or other, whilst practical science has its outlet also in the engineering profession, a considerable number of whose exponents make a study of the country's agricultural and mineral potentialities. A pleasing feature of the Peruvians is their cordial welcome of foreigners, their desire to assimilate the things of the outside world, and strong notions of progress. It is not, however, to be supposed that their houses are readily open to the foreign visitor. Like all Latin Americans they are exclusive; and the traveller must be a _caballero_, a person of refinement, if he is to enter their family circle.