For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan freebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so sinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities.
“ ‘Is that a friar passing?’ said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the crowded piazza, with humorous concern.
“ ‘Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella’s Inquisition wanes in Lima,’ laughed Don Sebastian. ‘Proceed, Señor.’
“ ‘A moment! Pardon!’ cried another of the company. ‘In the name of all us Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima for distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look surprised; you know the proverb all along this coast—“Corrupt as Lima.” It but bears out your saying, too; churches more plentiful than billiard-tables, and forever open—and “Corrupt as Lima.” So, too, Venice; I have been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St. Mark!— St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you pour out again.’
“Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages through which he floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of