Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/263

Rh of a different sex, beautiful as a goddess, or more than a goddess, if that be possible. Her long and black hair was confined by small and numerous tresses; it scarcely flowed with freedom on the shoulders, and there, forming graceful ringlets, played with the wind, or with the motions of the body. Her eyes were black and piercing. Her eye-brows, of the same colour, regular, and thickly planted, set off to still greater advantage the perfect whiteness of her face:—of a face which appeared to me so beautiful, and so divine, that the Peruvian ladies alone could vie with her in symmetry of features. The arms, well turned, full, and delicate, terminated in hands of equal perfection. The other parts of the body remained concealed in the dense substance of the cloud, so as to prevent me from ascertaining, by the particulars of her dress, the nation and country to which this prodigy of beauty might belong.

Without being able to contain myself, I said to the old man, my guide: "If you and be just and dispassionate judges, you cannot deny to  the title which she claims, of possessing an incomparable assemblage of graces."—"Ah! inexperienced youth," replied the scrupulous elder; "enraptured youth, thy admiration would be just, if all the beauties thou vie west were inherent and natural, and were not counterbalanced by affectation and imposture. Observe attentively: that white which surprizes thee so much, is a thin coat of arsenic or white lead, laid on with art, and in a manner glued to the skin. This is a despicable custom in any other nation; but, among the countrywomen of Eugenia, it is absolutely criminal, seeing that, by its adoption, they injure and tarnish their natural whiteness, that surprizing whiteness which excites