Hieroglyphics consist in certain symbols which are made to stand for invisible objects, on account of some analogy which such symbols were supposed to bear to the objects.  Egypt was the country where this sort of writing was most studied, and brought into a regular science.  In hieroglyphics was conveyed all the boasted knowledge of their priests.  According to the properties which they ascribed to animals, they chose them to be the emblems of moral objects.  Thus ingratitude was expressed by a viper; imprudence, by a fly; wisdom, by an ant; knowledge, by an eye; eternity, by a circle which has neither beginning nor end; a man universally shunned, by an eel, which they supposed to be found with no other fish.  Sometimes they joined two or more of these characters together, as a serpent with a hawk’s head, denoted nature, with God presiding over it.

INA.

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MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

BULL-FIGHTS AT LIMA.

From General Miller’s Memoirs.  Second edition.

The taste for bull-fights, introduced by the early Spaniards, is retained by their American descendants with undiminished ardour.  The announcement of an exhibition of this kind produces a state of universal excitement.  The streets are thronged, and the population of the surrounding country, dressed in their gayest attire, add to the multitudes of the city.  The sport is conducted with an eclat that exceeds the bull-fights in every other part of South America, and perhaps even surpasses those of Madrid.  The death of the bull, when properly managed, creates as much interest in the ladies of Lima, as the death of the hare to the English huntress, or the winning horse to the titled dames at Newmarket or Doncaster.  Nor can the pugilistic fancy of England take a deeper interest in the event of a prize-fight, than the gentlemen of Lima in the scientific worrying of a bull.  It is curious to observe how various are ideas of cruelty in different countries.  The English, for instance, exclaim against the barbarity of the bull-fight, as compared with the noble sport of cock-fighting, badger-baiting, &c.  But their enlightened horror could not exceed the disgust shown by a young South American, who witnessed a casual boxing-match between two boys in Hyde Park, surrounded and encouraged, as he expressed himself, by well-dressed barbarians.  It is amusing to witness the complacency with which one nation accuses another of cruelty, without taking a glance at customs at home.  The bulls destined for the ring are obtained principally from the woods in the valleys of Chincha, where they are bred in a wild state.  To catch and drive them to Lima, a distance of sixty leagues, is a matter of no inconsiderable expense.  A bull is given by each gremio, or incorporated trading company of the city.  The gremios vie in decorating their donation, which is bedizened with ribbons and flowers;