De Lussan's experience with the women of Central America--which for convenience is here considered as part of the southern continent--was so typical that it has been treated at greater length than it may have deserved. Indeed, there seems to be much light thrown on the impetuous, passionate nature of the Spanish-American woman by her bearing toward the pirates who ravaged the shores of her country yet to whom she frequently gave her heart and virtue. Of course this bearing was not invariable; Morgan, a greater pirate, but not so gallant a gentleman as De Lussan, when he captured Panama against fearful odds, found within its walls a Spanish lady with whom he fell violently in love, but who resolutely refused to listen to his proposals. Finding flattery, pleading, and bribery in vain, he showed the true brutality of his nature by throwing her into afoul dungeon and keeping her there half-starved, until even his rough comrades who delighted in slaughter and made the name of England a stench in the nostrils of the civilized world by their treatment of the Spaniards, remonstrated, and the brutal buccaneer was compelled by motives of policy to release his captive from her cell. She was finally ransomed and allowed to return to the ruins of her home, and here we lose sight of her; but we can remember her as one who was worthy of the best traditions of the Spanish ladies and whose memory may redeem the repute of her lighter countrywomen from their shame. It must not be thought from what has been said as to the morality of Spanish-American women in certain periods and places that it is designed to charge the race in general with immorality. That were to utter a slander which would be as baseless as it would be inexcusable. It is unfortunately true that in the history of any country or race it is the women most famous for immorality and wickedness who stand out most prominently; those who were merely good were tolerably sure to be forgotten as unnoteworthy. So it was with South America. We have the word of a keen observer "that any impartial person who shall reside long enough among South Americans to become acquainted with their domestic manners will declare that conjugal and paternal affection, filial piety, beneficence, generosity, good nature, and hospitality are the inmates of almost every house. I have no doubt, too, that these virtues will continue here, until civilization and refinement shall drive them from their abode in the New World, to make room for etiquette, formality, becoming pride, prudery, and hypocrisy from the Old. Then, the children of the first families in Lima (whom I have often seen rise from the table and carry a plateful of food to a poor protege beggar, seated in the patio or under the corridor, wait and chat with the little wretch until he had finished, and return to the table) will look on such objects with disdain, because mamma has subscribed a competent sum to a