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113

JOURNAL.

His Majesty’s ship Doris, Valparaiso harbour, Sunday night, April 28th, 1822.—Many days have passed, and I have been unable and unwilling to resume my journal. To-day the newness of the place, and all the other circumstances of our arrival, have drawn my thoughts to take some interest in the things around me. I can conceive nothing more glorious than the sight of the Andes this morning on approaching the land at day-break; starting, as it were, from the ocean itself, their summits of eternal snow shone in all the majesty of light long before the lower earth was illuminated, when suddenly the sun appeared from behind them and they were lost; and we sailed on for hours before we descried the land.

On anchoring here to-day, the first object I saw was the Chile State’s brig Galvarino, formerly the British brig of war Hecate, 114 the first ship my husband ever commanded, and in which I sailed with him in the Eastern Indian seas. Twelve years have since passed away!

We found His Majesty’s ship Blossom here. Her commander, Captain Vernon, will, I believe, take the command of this ship to-morrow.

The United States’ ships Franklin and Constellation are also here. As soon as Commodore Stewart saw the Doris approach the harbour with her colours half-mast high, he came to offer every assistance and accommodation the ship might require; and hearing that I was on board he returned, bringing Mrs. Stewart to call on me, and to offer me a cabin in the Franklin, in case I preferred it to remaining here, until I could procure a room on shore.

Monday, 29th.—This has been a day of trial. Early in the morning the new captain’s servants came on board to prepare the cabin for their master’s reception. I believe, what must be done is better done at once. Soon after breakfast, Captain Ridgely, of the United States’ ship Constellation, brought Mrs. and Miss Hogan, the wife and daughter of the American consul, to call and to offer all the assistance in their power; and told me, that the Commodore had delayed the sailing of his frigate, the Constellation, in order that she might carry letters from the Doris round Cape Horn, and would delay it still farther if I wished to avail myself of the opportunity to return home immediately. I was grateful, but declined the offer. I feel that I have neither health nor spirits for such a voyage just yet.

Immediately afterwards, Don Jose Ignacio Zenteno, the governor of Valparaiso, with two other officers, came on board on a visit of humanity as well as respect. He told me that he had appointed a spot within the fortress where I may “bury my dead out of my sight,” with such ceremonies and honours as our church and service demand, and has promised the attendance of soldiers, &c. All this is kind, and it is liberal.

At four o’clock I received notice that Mrs. Campbell, a Spanish lady, the wife of an English merchant, would receive me into her 115 house until I could find a lodging, and I left the ship shortly afterwards.

I hardly know how I left it, or how I passed over the deck where one little year ago I had been welcomed with such different prospects and feelings.

I have now been two hours ashore. Mrs. Campbell kindly allows me the liberty of being alone, which is kinder than any other kindness she could show.

April 30th.—This afternoon I stood at my window, looking over the bay. The captain’s barge, of the Doris, brought ashore the remains of my indulgent friend, companion, and husband. There were all his own people, and those of the Blossom and of the American ships, and their flags joined and mingled with those of England and of Chile; and their musicians played together the hymns fit for the burial of the pure in heart; and the procession was long, and joined by many who thought of those far off, and perhaps now no more; and by many from respect to our country: and I believe, indeed I know, that all was done that the pious feelings of our nature towards the departed demand; and if such things could soothe such a grief as mine they were not wanting.

But my mind has bowed before him in whose hand are the issues of life and death. And I know that I cannot stay long behind, though my life were lengthened to the utmost bounds of human being. And I trust, that when I am called to another state of existence, I may be able to say, “Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh Grave, where is thy victory?”

May 6th.—I have been very unwell; meantime my friends have procured a small house for me at some distance from the port, and I am preparing to remove to it.

9th of May, 1822.—I took possession of my cottage at Valparaiso; and felt indescribable relief in being quiet and alone.

By going backwards and forwards twice between Mr. Campbell’s and my own house, I have seen all that is to be seen of the exterior of the town of Valparaiso. It is a long straggling place, built at the 116 foot of steep rocks which overhang the sea, and advance so close to it in some places as barely to leave room for a narrow street, and open in others, so as to admit of two middling squares, one of which is the market-place, and has on one side the governor’s house, which is backed by a little fort crowning a low hill. The other square is dignified by the Iglesia Matriz, which, as there is no bishop here, stands in place of a cathedral. From these squares several ravines or quebradas branch off; these are filled with houses, and contain, I should imagine, the bulk of the population, which I am told amounts to 15,000 souls; further on there is the arsenal, where there are a few slips for building boats, and conveniences for repairing vessels; but all appearing poor; and still farther is the outer fort, which terminates the port on that side. To the east of the governor’s house, the town extends half a quarter of a mile or a little more, and then joins its suburb the Almendral, situated on a flat, sandy, but fertile plain, which the receding hills leave between them and the sea. The Almendral extends to three miles in length, but is very narrow; the houses, like most of those in the town, are of one story. They are all built of unburnt bricks, whitewashed and covered with red tiles; there are two churches, one of the Merced⁕1, rather handsome, and two convents, besides the hospital, which is a religious foundation. The Almendral is full of olive groves, and of almond gardens, whence it has its name; but, though far the pleasantest part of the town, it is not believed to be safe to live in it, lest one should be robbed or murdered, so that my taking a cottage at the very end of it is rather wondered at than approved. But I feel very safe, because I believe no one robs or kills without temptation or provocation; and as I have nothing to tempt thieves, so I am determined not to provoke murderers.

My house is one of the better kind of really Chilian cottages. It consists of a little entrance-hall, and a large sittingroom 16 feet square, at one end of which a door opens into a little dark bedroom, 117 and a door in the hall opens into another a little less. This is the body of the house, in front of which, looking to the south-west, there is a broad veranda. Adjoining, there is a servants’ room, and at a little distance the kitchen. My landlord, who deals in horses, has stables for them and his oxen, and several small cottages for his peons and their families, besides storehouses all around. There is a garden in front of the house, which slopes down towards the little river that divides me from the Almendral, stored with apples, pears, almonds, peaches, grapes, oranges, olives, and quinces, besides pumpkins, melons, cabbages, potatoes, French beans, and maize, and a few flowers; and behind the house the barest reddest hill in the neighbourhood rises pretty abruptly. It affords earth for numerous beautiful shrubs, and is worn in places by the constant tread of the mules, who bring firewood, charcoal, and vegetables, to the Valparaiso market. The interior of the house is clean, the walls are whitewashed, and the roof is planked, for stucco ceilings would not stand the frequent earthquakes, of which we had one pretty smart shock to-night. No Valparaiso native house of the middling class boasts more than one window, and that is not glazed, but generally secured by carved wooden or iron lattice-work; this is, of course, in the public sittingroom; so that the bedrooms are perfectly dark: I am considered fortunate in having doors to mine, but there is none between the hall and sittingroom, so I have made bold to hang up a curtain, to the wonder of my landlady, who cannot understand my finding no amusement in watching the motions of the servants or visitors who may be in the outer room.

⁕1 The royal, religious, and military order of the Merced was instituted by the king Don Jayme el Conquistador, for the purpose of redeeming captives.

May 10th.—Thanks to my friends both ashore and in the frigate, I am now pretty comfortably settled in my little home. Every body has been kind; one neighbour lends me a horse, another such furniture as I require: nation and habits make no difference. I arrived here in need of kindness, and I have received it from all.

I have great comfort in strolling on the hill behind my house; it commands a lovely view of the port and neighbouring hills. It is totally uncultivated, and in the best season can afford but poor 118 browsing for mules or horses. Now most of the shrubs are leafless, and it is totally without grass. But the milky tribe of trees and shrubs are still green enough to please the eye. A few of them, as the lobelia, retain here and there an orange or a crimson flower; and there are several sorts of parasitic plants, whose exquisitely beautiful blossoms adorn the naked branches of the deciduous shrubs, and whose bright green leaves, and vivid red and yellow blossoms shame the sober grey of the neighbouring olives, whose fruit is now ripening. The red soil of my hill is crossed here and there by great ridges of white half marble, half sparry stone; and all its sides bear deep marks of winter torrents; in the beds of these I have found pieces of green stone of a soft soapy appearance, and lumps of quartz and coarse granite. One of these water-courses was once worked for gold, but the quantity found was so inconsiderable, that the proprietor was glad to quit the precarious adventure, and to cultivate the CHACRA or garden-ground which joins to mine, and whose produce has been much more beneficial to his family.

I went to walk in that garden, and found there, besides the fruits common to my own, figs, lemons, and pomegranates, and the hedges full of white cluster roses. The mistress of the house is a near relation of my landlady, and takes in washing, but that by no means implies that either her rank or her pretensions are as low as those of an European washerwoman. Her mother was possessed of no less than eight chacras; but as she is ninety years old, that must have been a hundred years ago, when Valparaiso was by no means so large a place, and consequently chacras were less valuable. However, she was a great proprietor of land; but, as is usual here, most of it went to portion off a large family of daughters, and some I am afraid to pay the expenses of the gold found on the estate.

The old lady, seeing me in the garden, courteously invited me to walk in. The veranda in front of the house is like my own, paved with bricks nine inches square, and supported by rude wooden pillars, which the Chileno architects fancy they have carved handsomely; I found under it two of the most beautiful boys I ever saw, 119 and a very pretty young woman the grandchildren of the old lady. They all got up from the bench eager to receive me, and show me kindness. One of the boys ran to fetch his mother, the other went to gather a bunch of roses for me, and the daughter Joanita, taking me into the house gave me some beautiful carnations. From the garden we entered immediately into the common sittingroom, where, according to custom, one low latticed window afforded but a scanty light. By the window, a long bench covered with a sort of coarse Turkey carpet made here, runs nearly the length of the room, and before this a wooden platform, called the estrada, raised about six inches from the ground, and about five feet broad, is covered with the same sort of carpet, the rest of the floor being bare brick. A row of high-backed chairs occupies the opposite side of the room. On a table in a corner, under a glass case, I saw a little religious baby work,—a waxen Jesus an inch long, sprawls on a waxen Virgin’s knee, surrounded by Joseph, the oxen and asses, all of the same goodly material, decorated with moss and sea shells. Near this I observed a pot of beautiful flowers, and two pretty-shaped silver utensils, which I at first took for implements of worship, and then for inkstands, but I discovered that one was a little censer for burning pastile, with which the young women perfume their handkerchiefs and mantos, and the other the vase for holding the infusion of the herb of Paraguay, commonly called matte, so universally drank or rather sucked here. The herb appears like dried senna; a small quantity of it is put into the little vase with a proportion of sugar, and sometimes a bit of lemon peel, the water is poured boiling on it, and it is instantly sucked up through a tube about six inches long. This is the great luxury of the Chilenos, both male and female. The first thing in the morning is a matte, and the first thing after the afternoon siesta is a matte. I have not yet tasted of it, and do not much relish the idea of using the same tube with a dozen other people.

I was much struck with the appearance of my venerable neighbour; although bent with age she has no other sign of infirmity; her walk 120 is quick and light, and her grey eyes sparkle with intelligence. She wears her silver hair, according to the custom of the country, uncovered, and hanging down behind in one large braid; her linen shift is gathered up pretty high on her bosom, and its sleeves are visible near the wrist: she has a petticoat of white woollen stuff, and her gown of coloured woollen is like a close jacket, with a full-plaited petticoat attached to it, and fastened with double buttons in front. A rosary hangs round her neck, and she always wears the manto or shawl, which others only put on when they go out of doors, or in cold weather. The dress of the granddaughter is not very different from that of a French woman, excepting that the manto supersedes all hats, caps, capotes, and turbans. The young people, whether they fasten up their tresses with combs, or let them hang down, are fond of decorating them with natural flowers, and it is not uncommon to see a rose or a jonquil stuck behind the ear or through the earring.

Having sat some time in the house, I accepted Joanita’s proposal to walk in the garden; part of it was already planted with potatoes, and part was ploughing for barley, to be cut as green meat for the cattle. The plough is a very rude implement, such as the Spaniards brought it hither three hundred years ago; a piece of knee timber, shod at one end with a flat plate of iron, is the plough, into which a long pole is fixed by means of wedges; the pole is made fast to the yoke of the oxen, who drag it over the ground so as to do little more than scratch the surface.⁕2 As to a harrow, I have not seen or heard of one. The usual substitute for it being a bundle of fresh branches, which is dragged by a horse or ox, and if not heavy enough, stones, or the weight of a man or two, is added. The pumpkins, lettuces, and cabbages, are attended with more care: ridges being formed for them either with the original wooden spades of the country, or long-handled iron shovels upon the same plan. The 121 greatest labour, however, is bestowed on irrigating the gardens which is rendered indispensable by the eight months of dry weather in the summer. A multitude of little canals cross every field, and the hours for letting the water into them are regulated with reference to the convenience of the neighbours, through whose grounds the common stream passes. One part of every chacra is an arboleda, or orchard, however small, and few are without their little flower plot, where most of the common garden flowers of England are cultivated. The lupine both perennial and annual is native here. The native bulbous roots surpass most of ours in beauty, yet the strangers are treated with unjust preference. Roses, sweetpeas, carnations, and jasmine are deservedly prized; mignonette and sweetbriar are scarce, and honeysuckle is not to be procured. The scabious is called here the widow’s flower, and the children gathered their hands full of it for me.

From the flower-garden we went to the washing-ground, where I found a charcoal fire lighted on the brink of a pretty rivulet. On the fire was a huge copper vessel full of boiling water, and swimming in it there was a leaf of the prickly pear (Cactus ficus Indicus), here called tunia; this plant is said to possess the property of cleansing and softening the water. Close by there stood a large earthen vessel, which appeared to me to be full of soap-suds, but I found that no common soap was among it. The tree called Quillai, which is common in this part of Chile, furnishes a thick rough bark, which is so full of soapy matter, that a small piece of it wrapped in wool, moistened, and then beaten between two stones, makes a lather like the finest soap, and possesses a superior cleansing quality. All woollen garments are washed with it, and coloured woollen or silk acquires a freshness of tint equal to new by the use of it. I begged a piece of the dry bark; the inside is speckled with very minute crystals, and the taste is harsh like that of soda.

In my walk home from the washing-ground, I had occasion to see specimens both of the waggons and carriages of Chile. The wheels, 122 axletree, carriage, all are fastened together without a single nail or piece of iron. The wheels have a double wooden felly, placed so as that the joints in the one are covered by the entire parts of the other, and these are fastened together by strong wooden pins; the rest is all of strong wooden frame-work bound with hide, which being put on green, contracts and hardens as it dries, and makes the most secure of all bands. The flooring of both cart and coach consists of hide; the cart is tilted with canes and straw neatly wattled; the coach is commonly of painted canvass, nailed over a slight frame with seats on the sides, and the entrance behind. The coach is commonly drawn by a mule, though oxen are often used for the purpose; and always for the carts, yoked as for the plough. Oxen will travel hence to Santiago, upwards of ninety miles, with a loaded waggon in three days. These animals are as fine here, as I ever saw them in any part of the world; and the mules particularly good. It is needless to say anything of the horses, whose beauty, temper, and spirit, are unrivalled, notwithstanding their small size.

⁕2 I recollect a bit of antique mosaic, I think, but am not sure, in the Villa Albani, near Rome, representing just such a plough, and so yoked; the oxen are represented kicking, as if stung by a gadfly.

11th May.—This morning, tempted by the exceeding fineness of the weather, and the sweet feeling of the air, I set out to follow the little water-course that irrigates my garden, towards its source. After skirting the hill for about a furlong, always looking down on a fertile valley, and now and then gaining a peep at the bay and shipping between the fruit trees, I heard the sound of falling water, and on turning sharp round the corner of a rock, I found myself in a quebrada, or ravine, full of great blocks of granite, from which a bright plentiful stream had washed the red clay as it leaped down from ledge to ledge, and fell into a little bed of sand glistening with particles of mica that looked like fairy gold. Just at this spot, where myrtle bushes nearly choaked the approach, a wooden trough detained part of the rivulet in its fall, and led it to the course cut in the hill for the benefit of the cultivated lands on this side; the rest of the stream runs to the Santiago road, where meeting several smaller rills, it waters the opposite side of the valley, and finds its way to the 123 shore, where it oozes through a sand-bank to the sea, close to a little cove filled with fishermen’s houses.⁕3 On ascending the ravine a little farther, I found at the top of the waterfall, a bed of white marble lying along on the sober grey rock; and beyond it, half concealed by the shrubs, the water formed a thousand little falls—

But this valley, like all those in the immediate neighbourhood of Valparaiso, wants trees. The shrubs, however, are beautiful, and mixed here and there with the Chilian aloe (Pourretia Coarctata), and the great torch thistle, which rises to an extraordinary height. Among the humble flowers I remarked varieties of our common garden herbs, carraway, fennel, sage, thyme, mint, rue, wild carrot, and several sorts of sorrel. But it is not yet the season of flowers; here and there only, a solitary fuscia or andromeda was to be found;—but I did not want flowers,—the very feel of the open air, the verdure, the sunshine, were enough; and I doubly enjoyed this my first rural walk after being so long at sea.

⁕3 This is the only rivulet near Valparaiso: the old maps and travels, therefore, which represent the port as standing at the mouth of a river are wrong. Valparaiso is midway between the mouths of the Aconcagua and of the Maypu.

Friday, May 17th.—Three days of half fog, half rain, have given notice of the breaking up of the dry season, and my landlord has accordingly sent people to prepare the roof for the coming wet weather. This has given me an opportunity of being initiated in all the mysteries of Chileno masonry, or architecture, or whatever title we may give to the manner of building here. The poorest peasants live in what I conceive to be the original hut of every country, a little less carefully constructed here, where the climate is so fine and the temperature so equal, that, provided the roof is sufficient during the rains, the walls are of little consequence. These huts are made of stakes stuck in the ground, and fastened together with transverse 124 pieces of wood, either with soga or twine, made from the hemp of the country, with the bark of a water tree not unlike the poplar, or with thongs. Some have only a thick wattled wall of myrtle, or broom; others have the chinks in the wattling filled in with clay, and whitewashed either with lime,—which the natives knew how to prepare from beds of shells found in the country before the invasion of the Spaniards,—or with a kind of white ochre, which is very fine, and is found in pretty large beds in different parts of the country. The roofs are more solidly constructed, having usually over the supporting rafters a layer of branches plaistered with mud, and covered with the leaves of the Palma Tejera, or thatch palm, which abounds in the valleys of Chile. Broom, reeds, and a long fine grass, are also used for roofs. However poor the house, there is always a separate hut for cooking at a little distance.

The better houses, mine for instance, have very solid walls, often four feet thick, of unburnt bricks of about sixteen inches long, ten wide, and four thick. These, like the mortar in which they are bedded, are formed of the common earth, which is all fit for the purpose in this neighbourhood. When a man wishes to build, he digs down a portion of the nearest hill, and waters the loose earth till it acquires the consistence of mortar; a number of peons, or countrymen, then tread it to a proper smoothness and consistency; after which a quantity of chopped straw is added, which is again trodden till it is equally distributed through the mass, which is of course more solid for the bricks. These bricks are formed in a wooden frame, and then placed in the shade to dry, after which they are exposed to the sun to harden. After the walls are built they are generally allowed to stand a short time to settle before the rafters are laid on, and indeed the roof is a formidable weight. A very thick layer of green boughs, leaves and all, is first fastened with twine upon the rafters, whose interstices are pretty closely filled up with canes; a layer of mortar, or rather mud, of at least four inches thick, is spread above that; and in that mud are bedded round tiles, whose ridge rows are cemented with lime-mortar, a thin coat of 125 which is spread over the coarser plaister, both without and within the houses.

The brick buildings, and such huts as are plaistered within and without over the wattled work, and tiled, are called houses; the others are called, generally, ranchos. The word rancho is, however, also applied to the whole group of buildings that form the farmsteading of a Chilian peasant. Every thing here is so far back with regard to the conveniences and improvements of civilised life, that if we did not recollect the state of the Highlands of Scotland seventy years ago, it would be scarcely credible that the country could have been occupied for three centuries by so polished and enlightened a people as the Spaniards undoubtedly were in the sixteenth century, when they first took possession of Chile.

The only articles of dress publicly sold are shoes, or rather slippers, and hats. I do not, of course, mean that no stuffs from Europe or dresses for the higher classes are to be bought; because, since the opening of the port, retail shops for all sorts of European goods are nearly as common at Valparaiso as in any town of the same size in England. But the people of the country are still in the habit of spinning, weaving, dying, and making every article for themselves in their own houses, except hats and shoes. The distaff and spindle, the reel, the loom, particularly the latter, are all of the simplest and grossest construction; and the same loom, made of a few cross sticks, serves to weave the linen shirt or drawers, the woollen jacket and manteau, as well as the alfombra, or carpet, which is spread either on the estrada, or the bed, or the saddle, or carried to church as the Mussulman carries his mat to the mosque to kneel and pray on. The herbs and roots of the country furnish abundance and variety of dyes; and few, if any, families are without one female knowing in the properties of plants, whether for dying or for medicine. The bark of the Quillai is constantly used to clear and bring out the colours.

The dress of the Chilian men resembles that of the peasants of the south of Europe; linen shirts and drawers, cloth waistcoats, jackets, and breeches with a coloured listing at the seams; left unbuttoned at 126 the knee, and displaying the drawers. In the neighbourhood of Valparaiso trowsers are fast superseding the short breeches, however. White woollen or cotton stockings, and black leather shoes, are worn by the decent class of men: the very lowest seldom wear stockings; and in lieu of shoes they have either wooden clogs or oxotas, made of a square piece of hide bent to the foot, and tied in shape while green; the latter are sometimes put over shoes in riding through the woods: the hair is usually braided in one large braid hanging down behind, and a coloured handkerchief is tied over the head, above which a straw hat is fastened with black cord. In some districts black felt hats are used; in others, high caps. When the Chileno rides, which he does on every possible occasion, he uses as a cloak, the poncho, which is the native South American garb: it is a piece of square cloth, with a slit in the centre, just large enough to admit the head, and is peculiarly convenient for riding, as it leaves the arms quite free, while it protects the body completely. A pair of coarse cloth gaiters very loose, drawn far up over the knee, and tied with coloured listing, defend the legs; and a huge pair of spurs, with rowels often three inches in diameter, complete the equipment of an equestrian. These spurs are sometimes of copper, but the true pride of a Chileno is to have the stirrups, and the ornaments of his bridle, of silver. The bridles are usually made of plaited thongs, very neatly wrought; the reins terminate in a bunch of cords also of plaited thongs, which serves as a whip. The bit is simple, but very severe. The saddle is a wooden frame placed over eight or nine folds of cloth, carpet, or sheepskin; and over that frame are thrown other skins, dressed and dyed either blue, brown, or black; above all, the better sort use a well-dressed soft leather saddle-cloth, and the whole is fastened on with a stamped leather band, laced with thongs instead of a buckle. Some go to great expense in their saddle-cloths, carpets, skins, &c.; but the material is in all nearly the same, and a saddled horse looks as if he had a burden of carpets on his back. To the saddle is usually fastened the laza or cord of plaited hide, which the Spanish American 127 colonists on both sides of the Andes throw so dexterously either to catch cattle, or to make prisoners in war. The stirrups appended to these singular-looking saddles are either plain silver stirrups, having silver loops, &c. on the stirrup leathers; or in case of riding through woods on long journeys, a kind of carved box very heavy, and spreading considerably, so as to defend the foot from thorns and branches. Returning from a short walk to-day, I had a good opportunity of seeing a group of horsemen, young and old, who had come from the neighbourhood of Rancagua, a town near the foot of the Andes, to the southward of Santiago, with a cargo of wine and brandy. The liquor is contained in skins, and brought from the interior on mules. It is not uncommon to see a hundred and fifty of these under the guidance of ten or a dozen peons, with the guaso or farmer at their head, encamping in some open spot near a farm-house in the neighbourhood of the town. Many of these houses keep spare buildings, in which their itinerant friends secure their liquor while they go to the farms around, or even into town, to seek customers, not choosing to pay the heavy toll for going into the port, unless certain of sale for the wine. I bought a quantity for common use: it is a rich, strong, and sweetish white wine, capable, with good management, of great improvement, and infinitely preferable to any of the Cape wines, excepting Constantia, that I ever drank. I gave six dollars for two arobas of it, so that it comes to about 3½d. per bottle. The brandy might be good, but it is ill distilled, and generally spoiled by the infusion of aniseed. The liquor commonly drank by the lower classes is chicha, the regular descendant of that intoxicating chicha which the Spaniards found the South American savages possessed of the art of making, by chewing various berries and grains, spitting them into a large vessel, and allowing them to ferment. Rut the great and increasing demand for chicha has introduced a cleanlier way of making it; and it is now in fact little other than harsh cyder, the greater part being produced from apples, and flavoured with the various berries which formerly supplied the whole of the Indian chicha.

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18th.—One of my young friends from the Doris, some of whom have been with me daily, has brought me some excellent partridges of his own shooting. They are somewhat larger than the partridges in England, but I think quite as good, when properly dressed, or rather plucked; but the cooks here have a habit of scalding the feathers off, which hurts the flavour of the bird. There are several kinds of birds here good to eat, but neither quail nor pheasant. They have plenty of enemies: from the condor, through every variety of the eagle, vulture, hawk, and owl, down to the ugly, dull, green parrot of Chile, which never looks tolerably well, except on the wing, and then the under part, of purple and yellow, is handsome. The face is peculiarly ugly: his parrot’s beak being set in so close as to be to other parrots what the pug dog is to a greyhound. They are great foes to the little singing birds, whose notes as well as plumage resemble those of the linnet, and which abound in this neighbourhood. We have also a kind of blackbird with a soft, sweet, but very low note; a saucy thing that repeats two notes only, not unlike the mockbird, and that never moves out of the way; swallows and humming-birds are plenty; and the boys tell me they have seen marvellous storks and cranes in the marshes, which I shall take occasion to visit after the rains. I know not if we are to believe that the aboriginal Chilenos possessed the domestic fowl. At present they are abundant and excellent, as well as ducks, both native and foreign, and geese. Pigeons are not very common; but they thrive well, and are made pets of:—in short, this delightful climate seems favourable to the production of all that is necessary for the use and sustenance of man.

Monday, May 20th.—This is but a sad day. The Doris sailed early, and I feel again alone in the world; in her are gone the only relation, the only acquaintance I have in this wide country. In parting between friends, those who go have always less to feel than those who remain. The former have the exertion of moving, the charms of novelty, or at least variety of situation, and the advantage that new objects do not awaken associations connected with the subjects of our regret. Whereas the stationary person sees in each object a 129 memorial of those that are gone: the well-known voice is missed at the accustomed hour, and the solitary walk becomes a series of recollections, which bring at least the pain of feeling that it is solitary. Shakspeare,

often expresses this feeling, but never, in my mind, more truly or beautifully than when he makes Constance exclaim—

In the course of the day, however, the kindly acts and expressions of my new neighbours, and the friendly attentions of Commodore and Mrs. Stewart of the American line-of-battle ship Franklin, of Baron Macau of His Catholic Majesty’s ship Clorinde, and others, both English and foreigners, persuade me that there are yet many kindly hearts around me, and check the regrets I might otherwise indulge in. Yet I cannot forget that I am a widow, unprotected, and in a foreign land; separated from all my natural friends by distant and dangerous ways, whether I return by sea or land!

22d.—We have news from Peru, for the first time since my arrival, I think. A body of General San Martin’s army has been surprised, and destroyed by the royalists. The Chileno squadron, under Lord Cochrane, has returned to Callao, from its dangerous and difficult voyage to Acapulco, after chasing the two last remaining Spanish ships into patriot ports, where they have been forced to surrender; and it is said that San Martin has offered most flattering terms of reconciliation to Lord Cochrane. If I understand matters aright, it may be possible for His Lordship to listen to them, for the sake of the cause; but, personally, he will surely never repose the slightest confidence in him.

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23d.—To-day, for the first time since I came home, I rode to the port; and had leisure to observe the shops, markets, and wharf, if one may give that name to the platform before the custom-house.

The native shops, though very small, appear to me generally cleaner than those of Portuguese America. The silks of China, France, and Italy; the printed cottons of Britain; rosaries, and amulets, and glass from Germany;—generally furnish them. The stuffs of the country are very seldom to be purchased in a shop, because few are made but for domestic consumption. If a family has any to spare, it goes to the public market, like any other domestic produce. The French shops contain a richer variety of the same sort of goods; and there is a very tolerable French milliner, whose manners and smiles, so very artificial compared to the simple grace of the Chileno girls who employ her, would make no bad companion to Hogarth’s French dancing-master leading out the Antinous to dance. The English shops are more numerous than any. Hardware, pottery⁕4, and cotton and woollen cloths, form of course the staple articles. It is amusing to observe the ingenuity with which the Birmingham artists have accommodated themselves to the coarse transatlantic tastes. The framed saints, the tinsel snuff-boxes, the gaudy furniture, make one smile when contrasted with the decent and elegant simplicity of these things in Europe. The Germans furnish most of the glass in common use: it is of bad quality to be sure; but it, as well as the little German mirrors, which are chiefly brought to hang up as votive offerings in the chapels, answers all the purposes of Chileno consumption. Toys, beads, combs, and coarse perfumes, are likewise found in the German shops. Some few German artificers are also established here, and particularly a most ingenious blacksmith and farrier, one Frey, whose beautifully neat house and workshop, and his garden, render him an excellent model for the rising Chilenos.

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English tailors, shoemakers, saddlers, and inn-keepers, hang out their signs in every street; and the preponderance of the English language over every other spoken in the chief streets, would make one fancy Valparaiso a coast town in Britain. The North Americans greatly assist in this, however. Their goods, consisting of common furniture, flour, biscuit, and naval stores, necessarily keep them busier out of doors than any other set of people. The more elegant Parisian or London furniture is generally despatched unopened to Santiago, where the demand for articles of mere luxury is of course greater. The number of piano-fortes brought from England is astonishing. There is scarcely a house without one, as the fondness for music is excessive; and many of the young ladies play with skill and taste, though few take the trouble to learn the gamut, but trust entirely to the ear.

As to the market, meat is not often exposed in it, the shambles being out of town in the Almendral, and the carcases are brought into the butchers’ houses on horseback or in carts. The beef, mutton, and pork, are all excellent; but the clumsy method of cutting it up spoils it to the English eye and taste. A few Englishmen, however, have set up butcheries, where they also corn meat; and one of them has lately made mould candles as fine as any made in England, which is a real benefit to the country. The common candles, with thick wicks and unrefined and unbleached tallow, are, indeed, disgusting and wasteful.

The fish-market is indifferently supplied, I think chiefly from indolence, for the fish is both excellent and abundant. One of the most delicate is a kind of smelt; another, called the congrio, is as good as the best salmon trout, which it resembles in taste; but the flesh is white, the fish itself long, very flat towards the tail, and covered with a beautiful red-and-white marbled skin. There are excellent mullet, which the natives dry as the Devonshire fishers do the whiting to make buckhorn; besides a number of others whose names, either English or native, I know not. There is one which, if eaten quite fresh, is as good as the john doree, to which it bears great external 132 resemblance, but which is not eatable in a very few hours.⁕5 The shell-fish are various and good: clams, limpets, particularly a very large kind called loco, and most admirable crabs quite round in shape, are abundant. A large kind of muscle is frequently brought from the southern provinces; and the rocks of Quintero furnish the pico, a gigantic kind of barnacle, the most delicate shell-fish, without exception, I ever tasted.

With regard to the vegetables and fruit of the Valparaiso market, they are excellent in their way; but then the backward state of horticulture, as of every thing else, renders them much worse than they might be. Here fruit will grow in spite of neglect; and, though this is not the season for green or fresh fruits, the apples, pears, and grapes, the dried peaches, cherries⁕6, and figs, and the abundance of oranges and limes, as well as quinces, prove that culture alone is wanting to bring almost every fruit to perfection. As to the kitchen vegetables, the first and best are the potatoes, natives of the soil, of the very first quality. Cabbages of every kind; lettuces, inferior only to those of Lambeth; a few turnips and carrots, just beginning to be cultivated here; every kind of pumpkin and melon; onions in perfection, with their family of chive, garlic, and eschalot; and I am promised in the season cauliflower, green peas, French beans, celery, and asparagus; the latter grows wild on the hills. The French beans are, of course, the very best; as the ripened seed is the frijole here, the faggioli of Italy, the haricot of France, and the caravansa of all seafaring nations.

As to the poultry, it is good in itself; but a London poulterer would be not a little shocked at the state in which it makes its appearance at market. All these things are brought on mules or on horseback to town. The fruit in square trunks made of hide, ingeniously plaited and woven; and the vegetables in a kind of net made also of hide, which, indeed, serves for almost every purpose here: buckets, baskets, 133 bags, doors, flooring, hods to carry mortar in, hand-barrows, every thing, in short, is occasionally made of it.

Besides these articles of ordinary consumption, ponchos, hats, shoes, coarse stuffs, coarse earthenware, and sometimes jars of fine clay from Melipilla, or even Penco, and small cups of the same for the purpose of taking matee, are exposed for sale by the country people; who crowd round the stalls with an air of the greatest importance, smoking, and occasionally retiring to a line in the background, where the savoury smell and the crackling of the boiling fat inform the passengers, that fritters both sweet and savoury are to be procured; nor are the cups of wine or aguardiente wanting to improve the repast. But the greatest comfort to the market people is a fountain of excellent water which falls from a hideous lion’s mouth in the wall of the government house, or rather of the little fort which the governor inhabits, into a rude granite basin. There is no want of water about Valparaiso; but it is clumsily managed, as far as relates to domestic comfort and to watering the shipping in the harbour. The most convenient watering-place is supplied by a pretty abundant stream that is led close to the beach; but it passes by and through the hospital, and there is consequently a prejudice against it. Besides, I have heard that the water of this stream does not keep. There is another which has not that defect, where a small sum is paid for every vessel filled, whether large or small; and I believe the English ships of war usually fill their tanks there.

Returning from my shopping, I stopped at the apothecary’s (for there is but one), to buy some powder-blue, which, to my surprise, I found could only be procured there. I fancy it must resemble an apothecary’s of the fourteenth century, for it is even more antique looking than those I have seen in Italy or France. The man has a taste for natural history; so that besides his jars of old-fashioned medicines, inscribed all over with the celestial signs, oddly intermixed with packets of patent medicines from London, dried herbs, and filthy gallipots, there are fishes’ heads and snakes’ skins; in one corner a great condor tearing the flesh from the bones of a 134 lamb; in another a monster sheep, having an adscititious leg growing from the skin of his forehead; and there are chickens, and cats, and parrots, altogether producing a combination of antique dust and recent filth, far exceeding any thing I ever beheld.—“England, with all thy faults, I love thee still,” Cowper said at home, and Lord Byron at Calais. For my part, I believe if they had either of them been in Valparaiso, they would have forgotten that there were any faults at all in England. It is very pretty and very charming to read of delicious climates, and myrtle groves, and innocent and simple people who have few wants; but as man is born a social and an improvable, if not a perfectable animal, it is really very disagreeable to perform the retrograde steps to a state that counteracts the blessings of climate, and places less comfort in a palace in Chile than in a labourer’s hut in Scotland. Well did the Spirit say, “It is not good for man to live alone.” While I had another to communicate with, I used to see the fairest side of every picture; now I suspect myself of that growing selfishness, that looks with coldness or dislike on all not conformable to my own tastes and ideas, and that sees but the sad realities of things. The poetry of life is not over; but I begin to feel that Crabbe’s pictures are truer than Lord Byron’s.

Monday, May 27th.—Tempted by the fineness of the day, and a desire to see wild trees again (for there are none but fruit trees in the immediate neighbourhood of Valparaiso), I determined to take a country ride, and to treat my maid with the same. The difficulty was in mounting her, as I had but one side-saddle; however she managed to sit on one of the pillions of the countrywomen, who ride on what we should call the wrong side of the horse, on little saddles like those sometimes used for donkeys without pummels, and having a back and sides like an ill-made chair, covered with coloured velvet; and we went boldly up the Sorra or Sierra, that backs the town, by the Santiago road for a few miles, and then turned into a delightful valley called the Caxon de las Palmas, being part of the large estate of the same name depending on the Merced. For the first half mile we descended a steep hill, not richer in herbs or shrubs 135 than those we had left on the great road; but having reached a beautiful little stream, that leaps from stone to stone, now forming miniature cascades, and now little lakes among the short thick grass, the shrubs became of higher growth; and as we brushed through them, the fragrance that exhaled from their leaves brought Milton’s bowers of Paradise to my mind—

The varieties of laurel and myrtle are most conspicuous; and there are abundance of other trees and shrubs, most of whose leaves emit, on being crushed, a spicy flavour. One of the largest and most beautiful is the canela, or false cinnamon, which is used in medicine by both Indians and Spaniards, and whose properties are very similar to those of the real cinnamon of the East.⁕7 It is moreover an interesting tree, as connected with the history and superstitions of the natives. Under it the Pagan Chilenos performed their sacrifices to their deities, and invoked Pillam, the supreme judge; and I believe that some tribes of the Araucanians still revere it. It is certain that the branches of this tree, dipped in the blood of sacrifices, are used to sprinkle and consecrate places of council; and that such branches are considered as tokens of peace, and delivered accordingly to ambassadors on the forming of any treaty.⁕8 It was here as the oak was to the ancient Druids; and its beauty, its fragrance, and its wide-spreading shade, give to it in amenity what it wants of the grandeur of the king of forests.

After riding some time, partly up the bed of the rivulet, partly along its soft green margin and through its fragrant groves, we came 136 to an open space; where three or four picturesque cottages, with gardens and a few fields, occupied a diminutive plain, enclosed by steep woody mountains, where the palms that give name to the valley first appeared. The gardens are pretty extensive, but are chiefly occupied by strawberry beds. The fields are newly ploughed, and the cattle were grazing on the lower slopes of the surrounding hills: two or three palms rise from out the hedges of fruit trees that border the little gardens; they are different from any of the tribe I have seen, and produce a nut of the shape of the hazel, but much larger; the kernel is like a cocoa-nut, and, like it, when young contains milk; the leaf is larger, thicker, and richer than that of the great cocoa-nut palm, and therefore better adapted for thatching, to which use it is commonly applied here, and accordingly receives the name of Palma Tejera; the lower leaves are cut annually, and not above two or three of the upper ones left: by this means the tall straight trunk becomes crowned with a peculiar capital before the leaves branch off; and this is so similar to some of the capitals in the ruins of ancient Egypt, that I could not help fancying that I beheld the model of their solid yet elegant architecture before me.

This palm differs considerably from any I have seen in any part of the world. The height of those I have seen when full-grown is from fifty to sixty feet; at about two-thirds of that height the stems narrow considerably. The bark is composed of circular rings, knotty and brown; they are always upright, and exceed in circumference all the palms I know, except the dragon tree: the spathe containing the flower is so large, that the peasants use it to hold various domestic articles; and it is shaped so exactly like the canoes of the coast, that I think it must have served as the model for building them. I have not seen the flower, but, like most of the tribe, the male and female flowers are produced on different plants; and trees bearing the nuts are more respected by the natives, who do not cut the leaves, or at least do not so completely strip the trees of them as they do the barren plants. Perhaps, however, the accident of a palm growing within the limit of the fields may account for this, and that the 137 cutting the out-lying palms so close may injure them so as to prevent the growth of the fruit. This tree, when it is old, that is, when the people calculate that it may have seen a hundred and fifty years pass by, is cut down; and, by the application of fire, a thick rich juice distils from it, called here miel, or honey. The taste is between that of honey and the finest molasses. The quantity yielded by each tree sells for 200 dollars. Some other species of palms I know produce a sort of sugar. The date tree is one; but that, I remember, used to be tapped for the saccharine juice in the East Indies. I mean to suggest to some of my friends to try whether this tree, like the true cocoa-nut and the palmetto of Adamson, as well as the cycas or todda-pana, yields the toddy from which the best East Indian arrack is distilled. Pedro Ordoñez de Cevallos says the Indians call it Maguey, and make honey, wine, vinegar, cloth, cord, and thatch from it.⁕9

After stopping some time at the first group of palms, we rode along the Caxon by the wood-cutters’ paths, till stopped by the thickets, following the course of the stream; which sometimes flowed through a smooth valley, and sometimes between mountains so steep that the sun had not reached the bottom by noon-day, and the shrubs were sparkling with white dew. On our return, we met the first flock of sheep I had seen here. They are rather small; the fleeces appear fine and thick; they fetch at present from two to three, or even four reals, when very fine; but just now the price of the whole sheep would not exceed seven reals. I am happy to say, that during my ride I saw several fields newly brought into cultivation: it is painful to see the waste of fertile land here; but the country wants 138 people. I believe the whole population of the states of Chile does not equal that of London. But it is too early to judge of these things yet. As it is, I am disposed to think highly of the temper and disposition of the natives. They are frank, gay, docile, and brave; and surely these qualities should go to the making of a fine people—a nation that will be something.

May 30th.—I dined to-day in the port, with my very kind friends, Mr. Hogan, the American consul, and his wife and daughters; and met Captain Guise, lately of the Chileno naval service, together with his followers Dr. —— and Mr. ——. Captain Guise was exceedingly polite to me, and appears to be a good-natured gentlemanlike man. I have no doubt that, in the service, the technical and professional knowledge of Dr. —— and Mr. —— has been of infinite service, and that they have claims on the gratitude, to a certain degree, of all who love the cause of independence; but they neither possess the elevated tone of mind necessary for leading men and influencing council, nor information for guidance by precedent. In short, I must look upon them as adventurers, whose only aim has been to accumulate wealth in these rich provinces, without either the philanthropic or the chivalrous views which I am persuaded have accompanied the hopes of personal advantage in the minds of many of their fellow-labourers, in the great struggle for independence. To all whose views have been so bounded disappointment must be the consequence. Mere gold and silver scarcely render individuals rich; and nations they have in many cases rendered poor. Hence, Chile and Peru, who only possess money, and not money’s worth, are far too poor to give adequate rewards to their foreign servants; and all that could rationally be anticipated was the precarious chance of Spanish prize-money. I feel convinced that the divisions that I hear have taken place in the squadron have arisen from the disappointment of such hopes too highly raised; unless indeed, what I should shudder to think true, any English officers expected that their service in Chile would be only a kind of licensed buccaneering, where each should be master 139 of his own ship and his own actions, without rule or subordination. But the government wisely foresaw that danger; and the English naval code was adopted, and rigid subordination established; the supreme command confided to able, firm, and honourable hands; and I fondly trust, that the benefit of this sage measure will be permanently felt.

By letters from Lima received this day, it appears that Lord Cochrane had not gone on shore in Peru⁕10; that he lies in Callao bay, with his guns shotted; and that we may soon expect him here.

I had an opportunity to-day of observing how carelessly even sensible men make their observations in foreign countries, and on daily matters concerning them. A physician, at dinner, mentioned the medicinal qualities of the culen (Cytisus Arboreus⁕11), and that it would be worth while to bring it into Chile, or at least to the neighbourhood of Valparaiso, to cultivate, for the purpose of exportation. I was almost afraid to say, as I am a new-comer, that the country people had shown me a plant they called culen; but, on venturing to tell the gentleman so, he said it could not be because he never heard of it here. I went home, walked to the Quebrada, found the rocks on both sides covered with the best culen, and the inferior sort which grows much higher, not uncommon. Yet he is a clever man, and has resided some years in the country. This same culen is very agreeable as tea, and is said to possess antiscorbutic and antifebrile qualities, the smell of the dried leaves is pleasant, and a sweetish gum exudes from the flower-stalks. This gum is used by shoemakers instead of wax; and the fresh leaves formed into a salve with hogs’-lard, are applied with good effect to recent wounds.

The mistakes about the culen put me in mind of Mrs. Barbauld’s admirable tale, in the “Evenings at Home,” of “Eyes and no Eyes.” How much we are obliged to that excellent woman, who, with genius 140 and taste to adorn the first walks of literature, gave up the greatest fame to do the greatest good, by forming the minds of the young, and leading them to proper objects of pursuit. I am proud to belong to the sex and nation, which will furnish names to engage the reverence and affection of our fellow-creatures as long as virtue and literature continue to be cultivated. As long as there are parents to teach and children to be taught, no father, no mother will hear with indifference the names of Barbauld, Trimmer, or Edgeworth. Even here, in this distant clime, they will be revered. The first stone is laid; schools are established, and their works are preparing to form and enlighten the children of another language and another hemisphere.

Friday, May 31st.—To-day I indulged myself with a walk which I had been wishing to take for some days, to an obscure portion of the Almendral, called the Rincona, or nook, I suppose because it is in a little corner formed by two projecting hills. My object in going thither was to see the manufactory of coarse pottery, which I supposed to be established there, because I was told that the ollas, or jars, for cooking and carrying water, the earthen lamps, and the earthen brassiers, were all made there. On quitting the straight street of the Almendral, a little beyond the rivulet that divides it from my hill, I turned into a lane, the middle of which is channelled by a little stream which falls from the hills behind the Rincona, and after being subdivided and led through many a garden and field, finds its way much diminished to the sand of the Almendral where it is lost. Following the direction, though not adhering to the course of the rill, I found the Rincona beyond some ruined but thick walls, which stretch from the foot of the hills to the sea, and which were once intended as a defence to the port on that side: they are nothing now. I looked round in vain for any thing large enough either to be a manufactory, or even to contain the necessary furnaces for baking the pottery; nevertheless I passed many huts, at the doors of which I saw jars and dishes set out for sale, and concluded that these were the huts 141 of the inferior workmen. However on advancing a little farther I found that I must look for no regular manufactory, no division of labour, no machinery, not even the potter’s wheel, none of the aids to industry which I had conceived almost indispensable to a trade so artificial as that of making earthenware. At the door of one of the poorest huts, formed merely of branches and covered with long grass, having a hide for a door, sat a family of manufacturers. They were seated on sheep-skins spread under the shade of a little penthouse formed of green boughs, at their work. A mass of clay ready tempered⁕12 lay before them, and each person according to age and ability was forming jars, plates, or dishes. The work-people were all women, and I believe that no man condescends to employ himself in this way, that is, in making the small ware: the large wine jars, &c. of Melipilla are made by men. As the shortest way of learning is to mix at once with those we wish to learn from, I seated myself on the sheep-skin and began to work too, imitating as I could a little girl who was making a simple saucer. The old woman who seemed the chief directress, looked at me very gravely, and then took my work and showed me how to begin it anew, and work its shape aright. All this, to be sure, I might have guessed at; but the secret I wanted to learn, was the art of polishing the clay, for it is not rendered shining by any of the glazing processes I have seen; therefore I waited patiently and worked at my dish till it was ready. Then the old woman put her hand into a leathern pocket which she wore in front, and drew out a smooth shell, with which she first formed the edges and borders anew; and then rubbed it, first gently, and, as the clay hardened, with greater force, dipping the shell occasionally in water, all over the surface, until a perfect polish was produced, and the vessel was set to dry in the shade.

Sometimes the earthenware so prepared is baked in large ovens constructed on purpose; but as often, the holes in the side of the hill, 142 whence the clay has been dug, or rather scraped with the hands, serve for this purpose. The wood chiefly used for these simple furnaces is the espinella or small thorn, not at all the same as the espina or common firewood of the country, which is the mimosa, whose flowers are highly aromatic. The espinella has more the appearance of a thorny coronilla. It is said to make the most ardent fire of any of the native woods. The pottery here is only for the most ordinary utensils; but I have seen some jars from Melipilla and Penco which in shape and workmanship might pass for Etruscan. These are sometimes sold for as high prices as fifty dollars, and are used for holding water. They are ornamented with streaks, and various patterns, in white and red clay, where the ground is black; and where it is red or brown, with black and white. Some of the red jars have these ornaments of a shining substance that looks like gold dust, which is, I believe, clay having pyrites of iron; and many have grotesque heads, with imitations of human arms for handles, and ornaments indented on them; but, excepting in the forming of the heads and arms, I do not recollect any Chileno vase with raised decorations.⁕13

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It is impossible to conceive a greater degree of apparent poverty than is exhibited in the potters’ cottages of the Rincona. Most, however, had a decent bed; a few stakes driven into the ground, and laced across with thongs, form the bedstead; a mattress of wool, and, where the women are industrious, sheets of coarse homespun cotton and thick woollen coverlets form no contemptible resting-place for the man and wife, or rather for the wife, for I believe the men pass the greater part of every night, according to the custom of the country, sleeping, wrapped up in their ponchos, in the open air. The infants are hung in little hammocks of sheep-skin to the poles of the roof; and the other children or relations sleep as they can on skins, wrapped in their ponchos, on the ground. In one of the huts there was no bed; the whole furniture consisted of two skin trunks; and there were eleven inhabitants, including two infants, twins, there being neither father nor man of any kind to own or protect them. The natural gentleness and goodness of nature of the people of Chile preserve even the vicious, at least among the women, from that effrontery which such a family as I here visited would, and must, have exhibited in Europe. My instructress had a husband, and her house was more decent: it had a bed; it had a raised bench formed of clay; and there were the implements of female industry, a distaff and spindle, and knitting needles formed of the spines of the great torch-thistle from Coquimbo, which grow to nine inches long.⁕14 But the hamlet of the Rincona is the most wretched I have yet seen. Its natives, however, pointed out to me their beautiful view, which is indeed magnificent, across the ocean to the snow-capped Andes, and boasted of the pleasure of walking on their hills on a holiday evening: then they showed me their sweet and wholesome stream of water, and their ancient fig-trees, inviting me to go back “when the figs should be ripe, and the flowers looking at themselves in the stream.” I was ashamed of some of the expressions of pity that had escaped 144 me.—If I cannot better their condition, why awaken them to a sense of its miseries?

Leaving the Rincona, instead of going directly to the Almendral, I skirted the hill by the hamlet called the Pocura, where I found huts of a better description, most of them having a little garden with cherry and plum trees, and a few cabbages and flowers. In the veranda of one of them a woman was weaving coarse blue cloth. The operation is tedious, for the fixed loom and the shuttle are unknown; and next to the weaving of the Arab hair-cloths, I should conceive that in no part of the world can this most useful operation be performed so clumsily or inconveniently. At the further part of the Pocura an English butcher has built a house that looks like a palace here, to the great admiration of the natives. Immediately above, on a plain which may be from 80 to 100 feet above the village, is the new burying ground or pantheon, the government having wisely taken measures to prevent the continuance of burying in or near the town. The prejudice, however, naturally attached to an ancient place of sepulture prevents this from being occupied according to the intention of the projectors. Separated from this only by a wall, is the place at length assigned by Roman Catholic superstition to the heretics as a burial ground; or rather, which the heretics have been permitted to purchase. Hitherto, such as had not permission to bury in the forts where they could be guarded, preferred being carried out to sea, and sunk;—many instances having occurred of the exhumation of heretics, buried on shore, by the bigotted natives, and the exposure of their bodies to the birds and beasts of prey.

The situation of this resting-place is beautiful; surrounded by mountains, yet elevated above the plain, it looks out upon the ocean over gardens and olive groves; and if the spirit hovers over its mortal remains, here at least it is surrounded with “shapes and sights delightful.” But I trust it is better employed than in watching the frail and perishable creature of clay; a task, alas! but irksome, when life itself is the reward, but how disgusting to a pure intelligence, which, once freed from its sublunary fetters, must delight in its liberty 145 and its unchecked powers. Oh! what, when the busy longing after immortality is gratified, can have power to bring the spirit down to earth? Not, surely, a lingering fondness for its ancient dwelling;—no, it must be love, which feels like an immortal sentiment for some kindred and congenial spirit that could prompt us to hover near till that spirit joined us in our flight to eternity. I firmly believe that no communication can take place between those once gone, and the habitants of earth. But will not the happier friend be conscious of the feelings and regrets of those he has left; may he not watch over them and welcome them at last to his own state? There is nothing contrary to reason in such a belief; and I think revelation encourages it. And surely it is one means of reconciliation,—one source of comfort to those who have closed the dying eyes of all that was best and dearest.

It was twilight long before I reached home, and the evening had become chill and gloomy; and I sat down in my solitary cottage, and thought of the hopes and wishes with which I had left England, and almost doubted whether I, too, had not passed the bounds of life: but such abstractions can never happily last long. The ordinary current of existence rolls not so smoothly, but that at every turn some inequality awakens consciousness; and I roused myself to my daily task of study, and of writing down the occurrences of the day.

I have often thought a collection of faithful journals might furnish better food to a moral philosopher for his speculations, than all the formal disquisitions that ever were written. There are days of hurry and happy occupation, that leave also a hurry of spirits, that permits but the shortest and most concise entries; others there are, where idleness and the self-importance we all feel, more or less, in writing a journal, swell the pages with laborious trifling; and some, again, where a few short sentences tell of a state of mind that it requires courage indeed to exhibit to another eye. A copied journal is less characteristic: it may be equally true, it may give a better, because a more rational and careful account of countries visited; and the copying it, may awaken associations and lead the writer to 146 other views,—to descant with other feelings on the same occurrences. And though there be no intentional variation, some shades of character will be kept under by fear, some suppressed, it may be through modesty, and there are feelings for others which will blot out many more: yet the journal is true; true to nature, true to facts, and true to a better feeling than often dictates the momentary lines of spleen or suffering. This truth I solemnly engage myself to preserve. I cannot give, and I trust no one will demand, more.

June 2d.—A rainy morning, and feeling cold, yet the thermometer not below 50° of Fahrenheit. While I was at breakfast, one of my little neighbours came running in, screaming out “Señora, he is come! he is come!”—“Who is come, child?”—“Our admiral, our great and good admiral; and if you come to the veranda, you will see the flags in the Almendral.” Accordingly, I looked out, and did see the Chilian flag hoisted at every door: and two ships more in the roads than there were yesterday. The O’Higgins and Valdivia had arrived during the night, and all the inhabitants of the port and suburbs had made haste to display their flags and their joy on Lord Cochrane’s safe return. I am delighted at his arrival, not only because I want to see him, whom I look up to as my natural friend here⁕15, but because I think he ought to have influence to mend some things, and to prevent others; which, without such influence, will, I fear, prove highly detrimental to the rising state of Chile, if not to the general cause of South American independence.

My mind, for a time after I arrived, was not sufficiently free to attend, with any degree of interest, to the political state of the country: yet a measure of vital importance is now pending.

On the first settlement of affairs after the battle of Chacabuco, Don Bernardo O’Higgins had been chosen to preside over the nation, under the title of Supreme Director of Chile. A senate was chosen from among the respectable citizens to assist him, and a provisional 147 constitution was adopted. The law of the land continued to be such as the Old Spaniards had bequeathed it. The constitution gave equal rights to all; abolished slavery, limited the privileges of the mayorasgos, diminished the power and revenue of the church, and adopted the English naval code for the regulation of its maritime affairs. But three years and a half of internal peace and success in all distant expeditions had given leisure to the northern provinces of Chile, and particularly to the capital, to see and feel the inconveniences of the actual form of government; which was in fact a despotic oligarchy at first, and, by the absence or secession of the members of the senate, who were disgusted at the opposition they met with in a plan for declaring their office perpetual and hereditary, the whole power had been left in the single hands of the director: if he had had a spark of ordinary ambition, he might have made himself absolute. It is seldom that a successful soldier like O’Higgins has the sense to see, and the prudence to avoid, the danger of absolute power: he, however, has had both; and the senate being dissolved, he has convoked a deliberative assembly for the purpose of forming a permanent constitution. The members are to be named by him and his private council, from among the most respectable inhabitants of each township in Chile. This assembly is to devise the means for forming and securing a national representation; and, till such representation can be called together, to sit as a legislative body, for a period not exceeding three months, while the executive power still remains in the hands of the director.⁕16

If such an assembly should honestly do its duty, nothing could be wiser than this measure. But chosen by the executive, and therefore biassed not unnaturally in its favour, it appears to me, that every possible difficulty lies in the way of obtaining through that assembly an effective representative government; and it might have been wiser, and certainly, as the government is constituted, as legal, to have issued a decree for electing representatives for the towns at once. 148 These, as the people of the country increased and became enlightened, would naturally add to their numbers, and the government would grow along with the people. I am too old not to be afraid of ready-made constitutions, and especially of one fitted to the habits of a highly civilised people applied too suddenly to an infant nation like this. Nothing here can be too simple; perhaps, the director and senate, or at most, the director with a principal burgess from each town, to be changed annually, and representing the council of the primitive kings or patriarchs, would for many years suit such a state of society better than any more complicated form of legislature. To this council should certainly be called the chiefs of the army and of the navy. With so limited a population, boards for the regulation of different departments of government must be worse than useless. Neither the men nor the money can be spared for such purposes, and a single accountable chief from each department would answer every end.

Here, where so few have received an education fit to become legislators, the lawyers and the clergy must bear an undue proportion to the rest. For the maritime town of Valparaiso a priest is elected; and the merchants, who will fill up the other places with perhaps three or four soldiers, while there is no representative for the navy, are men whose views have become contracted by their hitherto confined speculations, and from whom, however well-intentioned, it would be vain to expect any very enlightened proceedings.

I am interested in the character of the people, and wish well to the good cause of independence. Let the South American colonies once secure that, and civil liberty, and all its attendant blessings, will come in time.

But I have been writing away the rainy morning, and indulging in thoughts too much akin to those of Milton’s conceited inhabitants of Pandemonium. What have I to do with states or governments, who am living in a foreign land by sufferance, and who can tell from experience

149

June 6th.—To-day the feast of the Corpus Domini was celebrated; and I went to the Iglesia Matriz with my friend Mrs. Campbell to hear her brother Don Mariano de Escalada preach. We went at 9 o’clock: she had put off her French or English dress, and adopted the Spanish costume; I did so also, so far as to wear a mantilla instead of a bonnet, such being the custom on going to church. A boy followed us with missals, and a carpet to kneel on. The church, like all other buildings here, appears mean from without; but within it is large and decently decorated: to be sure the Virgin was in white satin, with a hoop and silver fringes, surrounded with looking-glasses, and supported on either hand by St. Peter and St. Paul; the former in a lace cassock, and the latter in a robe formed of the same block which composes his own gracious personage. As there was to be a procession, and as the governor was to be a principal person in the ceremonies preceding it, we waited his arrival for the beginning of the service until 11 o’clock; so that I had plenty of time to look at the church, the saints, and the ladies, who were, generally speaking, very pretty, and becomingly dressed with their mantillas and braided hair. At length the great man arrived, and it was whispered that he had been transacting business with the admiral, and transmitting to him, and the captains, and other officers, the thanks of the government for their services.⁕17 But the whispers died away, and the young preacher began. The sermon was of course occasional; it spoke in good language of the moral freedom conferred by the Christian dispensation, and thence the step was not far to political freedom: but the argument was so decorously managed, that it could offend none; and yet so strongly urged that it might persuade many. I was highly pleased with it, and sorry to see it succeeded by the ceremony of kissing the reliquary, which seemed as little to the taste of Zenteno as might be, by the look of ineffable disdain he bestowed on the poor priest who presented it. The procession was now arranged; and my friend and I, 150 to escape joining it, hurried out of church, and took a stand to see it at some distance. As I saw the mean little train appear,—for mean it was, though composed of all the municipal and military dignitaries that could be collected,—I could not help thinking of the splendid show which three years ago I saw on the day of the Corpus Domini in Rome, and thinking how, in both cases, the “form of godliness denied the power thereof,” and as I knelt to the symbols of religion, how widely different was that faith which worships God in spirit and in truth.

There was a pretty part of the show, however, on the water: about 150 little boats and canoes, dressed with the national colours, and firing rockets every now and then, rowed round the bay, and stopped at every church, and before every fishing cove, to sing a hymn, or chaunt. After accompanying them for some time, I went into Mr. Hoseason’s house, and there I found Lord Cochrane. I should say he looks better than when I last saw him in England, although his life of exertion and anxiety has not been such as is in general favourable to the looks.—How my heart yearned to think that when our own country lost his service, England,

But he is doing honour to his native land, by supporting that cause which used to be hers; and in after-ages his name will be among those of the household gods of the Chilenos.

On Lord Cochrane’s arrival here from Lima, every body was of course anxious to hear what he, and the officers of the squadron in general, think and feel concerning the protectorate of Peru. His Lordship, however, does not say any thing concerning the conduct of San Martin; but the officers are not so discreet: they universally represent the present government of Peru as most despotic and tyrannical, now and then stained by cruelties more like the frenetic acts of the Czar Paul than the inflictions of even the greatest military tyrants. I have a letter from an officer of the Doris, saying that an elderly respectable woman in Lima, having imprudently spoken too 151 freely of San Martin, was condemned to be exposed for three hours in the streets in a robe of penance; and that as her voice had offended, she was gagged, and the gag used was a human bone. She was taken home fainting with a natural loathing, and died!

There is now in this port a vessel, the Milagro, full of Spanish prisoners, to whom San Martin had promised security and protection for their persons and property. However, after paying half their property for letters of naturalisation, and for permission to retain the rest, and with it to leave Lima, they were seized and stripped on the road to Callao, huddled on board the prison-ship, and are now in the bay to be sent to the rest of the prisoners at Santiago, whose captivity is too probably for life, as they are only to be liberated when Old Spain acknowledges the independence of her colonies. These poor people have arrived without the common necessaries of life, and leave has been refused to supply some of their most pressing wants;—but Lord Cochrane has done it without leave. Would that he could inspire these people with some of the humanities of war as practised in Europe!

Two agents of the Peruvian government are said to have arrived in the Milagro, for the purpose of spying the state of Lord Cochrane’s ships, and perhaps of tampering with the officers, or the government itself, to get them for Peru. It is given out, however, that they are only agents for the prisoners; it may be so, but the report shows the opinions entertained of the honesty of the Protector of Peru.

The admiral is on the point of visiting the director at Santiago. I do hope the government will set about doing him the justice of repairing the ships: there is still enough for him to do. While the royalists under Quintanilla continue to hold Chiloe, there will always be a shelter and receptacle for reinforcements from Spain; and though I believe it impossible that these provinces should ever again be united to the mother country, yet the contest and the miseries of civil war may be protracted. Besides, what is to protect the long coast of Chile but its squadron?

⁕17 See these letters in the Introduction, p. 110.

8th.—I went to pay a visit to the wife of my landlord, who had 152 often entreated me to go and take matee with her; but my dread of using the bombilla, or tube which passes round to every body for the purpose of sucking it up, had hitherto deterred me. However, I resolved to get over my prejudice, and accordingly walked to her house this evening. It is built, I should think, something on the plan of the semi-Moorish houses which the Spaniards introduced into this country. Passing under a gateway, on each side of which are shops, occupied by various owners, looking towards the streets, I entered a spacious court-yard; one side of which is occupied by the gate, and into which the windows of the house look out. A second side of the quadrangle appeared to be store-houses; the other two, by their jalousied windows, showed that the dwelling apartments were situated there. In the entrance-hall the servants were sitting, or standing loitering, for the working time of day was over; and they were looking into the family apartment, where the women were lolling on the estrada, or raised platform covered with carpet (alfombra), supported by cushions, on one side of the room; and the men, with their hats on, were sitting on high chairs, smoking and spitting, on the other. Along the wall by the estrada, a covered bench runs the whole length of the room; and there I was invited to sit, and the matee was called for.

A relation of the lady then went to the lower end of the estrada, and sat on the edge of it, before a large chafingdish of lighted charcoal, on which was a copper-pot full of boiling water. The matee cups were then handed to the matee maker, who, after putting in the proper ingredients, poured the boiling water over them, applied the bombilla to her lips, and then handed it to me; but it was long ere I could venture to taste the boiling liquor, which is harsher than tea, but still very pleasant. As soon as I had finished my cup, it was instantly replenished and handed to another person, and so on till all were served; two cups and tubes having gone round the whole circle. Soon after the matee, sugar-biscuits were handed round, and then cold water, which concluded the visit. The people I went to see were of the better class of shopkeepers, dignified by 153 the name of merchants; and holding a small landed estate under one of the mayorasgos near the chacra where I reside. Their manners are decent; and there is a grace and kindliness in the women that might adorn the most polished drawing-rooms, and which prevents the want of education from being so disgusting as in our own country, where it is generally accompanied by vulgarity. Here the want of cultivation sends women back to their natural means of persuasion, gentleness and caresses; and if a little cunning mingles with them, it is the protection nature has given the weak against the strong. In England a pretty ignorant woman is nine times in ten a vixen, and rules or tries to rule accordingly. Here the simplicity of nature approaches to the highest refinements of education; and a well-born and well-bred English gentlewoman is not very different in external manners from a Chilena girl.

June 12th.—After three days’ rain, this morning is as fine “as that on which Paradise was created.” So I spent half of it in gardening, half in wandering about the quebradas in search of wild flowers; and first, in the sandy lane near me I found a variety of the yellow horned poppy, and the common mallow of England, besides the cultivated variety with pink flowers; vervain, two or three kinds of trefoil, furniatory, fennel, pimpernel, and a small scarlet mallow with flowers not larger. These, with three or four geraniums, sorrel, dock, the ribbed plantain, lucerne, which is the common fodder here, and several other small flowers, made me imagine myself in an English lane. The new plants that first struck me were the beautiful red quintral, which some call the Chile honeysuckle, from its fancied resemblance to that shrub; but it is scentless, and it is a parasite. And a beautiful little flower, also a parasite, called here cabella de angel, or angel’s hair (Cuscuta). It has no leaves, but their place is supplied by long semi-transparent stalks; which, waving in the air from the branches of the trees on which they have fastened, appear like locks of golden hair, and have given name to the plant. The flower grows in thick close clusters, and looks like white wax, with a rosy tinge in the centre; it is five-petalled, about the size of the single 154 florets of lily of the valley, and very fragrant. Both these parasites are considered by the natives as emollients, and are applied to wounds.

I soon found myself beyond my own knowledge of plants, and therefore took a large handful to a neighbour, reputed to be skilful in their properties; and, as I went in, thought on the beautiful passage in the “Faithful Shepherdess,” where Chlorine apostrophises the simples she has been gathering.

And, first, the culen, whose virtues I have mentioned before, and which I now learned was also a charm against witchcraft. The litri, the leaves of which blister the hands, nay, so acrid is the plant, that persons but passing by, have their faces swelled by it, and it is dangerous to sleep in its shade. Nevertheless, a drink made from its berries, is considered wholesome: the wood is hard as iron, and is used for plough-shares. The algarobilla, a pretty small acacia, yields a black dye, and common writing-ink is made from it. Quilo, a small flowering trailing shrub, the flower is greenish-white, succeeded by a berry, or rather seed, enclosed in a fleshy cup, divided into five segments, and exposing the seed; the whole berry is of the size of a currant, and of a pleasant sub-acid taste: the roots, when boiled, are used to restore grey hair to its original colour. The floripondio, (Datura Arborea,) whose beautiful funnel-shaped flower, milk white, ten inches long and four broad, smells sweet as the sun goes down. Some beautiful varieties of lady’s slipper, (Calceolarea,) romarillo or 155 bastard rosemary, an infusion of which is drank to strengthen the stomach. Palqui, the yellow and the lilac-flowered; the last smells like jasmine during the night, but is disagreeable after sun-rise: the plant is hurtful taken inwardly, but useful as a lotion, for swellings and cutaneous eruptions: it is chiefly used for making soap, as it yields the finest ashes, and in the greatest quantities of any plant here. Yerva Mora is a variety of solatium, a specific for complaints in the eyes: there is a beautiful azure-blue variety, with deeply-indented leaves.⁕19 Manzanilla, so called from its smelling of apples, is a strong bitter, like camomile, and is used in the same manner. It looks like camomile with the outer florets stripped off: the true camomile is called Manzanilla de Castilla. The maravilla or shrubby sunflower, grows abundantly on all the hills around, and affords excellent browsing for the cattle. Mayu⁕20, whose pods furnish a dark powder that makes excellent writing-ink. Pimentella, a kind of sage, with splendid flowers but dull grey leaves, used for rheumatic pains. The quillo quilloe, or white lychnis and tornatilla, a mallow, are also used in medicine; and I saw in the house bundles of dried Cachanlangue, or lesser herb-centaury, which I was assured was a sovereign remedy in spitting blood. Besides all these useful plants, I had gathered the Flor de Soldado, (scarlet celsia,) the Barba de Viejo, a shrub with a small aggregate flower growing in clusters, and smelling like queen of the meadow, andromeda, and the lesser fuscia: so that, considering that it is not yet the season of flowers, I had been pretty successful. I am sorry I know so little of botany, because I am really fond of plants. But I love to see their habits, and to know their countries and their uses; and it appears to me that the nomenclature of botany is contrived to keep people at a distance from any real acquaintance with one of the most beautiful classes of objects in nature. What have harsh hundred syllabled names to do with such lovely things as roses, jasmines, and violets?

156

Wednesday, June 19th.—These few last days I have been less alone. My friend Miss H. is staying with me, and we have had many pleasant walks together; and I have become acquainted with several of the Chileno naval officers. Captain Foster, who was the senior captain, has given up his command, and, it is said, has tendered his resignation to the supreme government: he very kindly came the other day to superintend the putting up a stove in my little sitting room. I have hitherto used an open brasier, but, though very comfortable, the fumes of the charcoal must be hurtful; but with a stove, they pass off through the funnel. Several houses have now English stoves and grates, but the burning of coal is not yet very general. English coal is of course dear, and the coal from the province of Conception, which resembles the Scotch coal, is not yet worked to a sufficient extent to supply the market.

Of the officers actually belonging to the squadron, I have seen Captain Crosbie, Lord Cochrane’s flag captain, a pleasant gentlemanlike young Irishman, brave as Lord Cochrane’s captain ought to be, and intelligent. Captain Cobbet, the nephew of Cobbet, with a great deal of the hard-headed sense of his uncle, and also, if all physiognomical presages are not false, endowed with no small share of his selfishness, owes every thing, education and promotion, both in the English navy and this, to Lord Cochrane, and has the reputation of being an excellent seaman: I find him polite, intelligent, and communicative. But the person who seems peculiarly to possess the information concerning all I want to know, is the physician of the O’Higgins, Dr. Craig. Skill in his profession, good sense, rational curiosity, and enthusiasm of character concealed under a shy exterior, render him a more interesting person than ninety-nine in a hundred to be met with on this side of Cape Horn; and I feel peculiarly happy in making his acquaintance.

It is not unpleasant to have one’s solitude now and then broken in upon by persons who, like these, have characters of their own; but there is a sad proportion in the English society here of trash. However, as vulgarity, ignorance, and coarseness, often disguise kindness 157 of heart, and as I have experienced the latter from all, it scarcely becomes me to complain of the roughness of the coat of the pineapple while enjoying the flavour of the fruit.⁕21 Of many of these I may say,—

Yesterday a very interesting person sailed from hence for Lima, Mr. Thompson, one of those men whom real Christian philanthropy has led across the ocean and across the Andes to diffuse the benefits of education among his fellow-creatures. He had spent some time in Santiago, where, under the patronage of the supreme director, he has established a school of mutual instruction on the plan of Lancaster. He has been in Valparaiso some time superintending the formation of a similar school, to the maintenance of which part of the revenue of a suppressed monastery has been appropriated. The governor, with the Cabildo and military officers in procession, accompanied Mr. Thompson on the opening of the school, so that all the importance was given it that was possible, and I am happy to say with good effect. It is now, though so recent, well attended, and I have met many of the country people bringing in their children in the morning to go thither.⁕22 The immediate wants of Chile are education in the upper and middling classes, and a greater number of working hands. I ought, I suppose, to say productive labourers; but hands, both indirectly and directly productive, are wanting. Not a hundredth part of the soil is cultivated, and yet it produces from sixteen fold on the bare coast, to a hundred fold of wheat in the upper country; ordinarily sixty every where, and in some spots ninety of barley, and so on of maize; not to mention that the fruits transplanted hither seem to have adopted the soil, and even to improve in quality and in quantity in this favoured climate.

158

20th.—To-day, being anxious to procure a variety of scene for my young friend, we walked to what is usually called the flower-garden here, and I, at least, highly enjoyed the day. On reaching the house of the mistress of the garden, we found her seated on the brick bench before the door. She appears very old: her hair, which fell in a single braid down her back, being perfectly grey. She is tall and hale-looking, and soon summoned three of her five daughters to receive us. The youngest of these appeared to be at least fifty, tall, muscular, well made, with the remains of decided beauty, with an elastic step and agreeable voice: they stepped forward bearing carpets for us to sit on, and oranges to refresh us. The other two, of scarcely less imposing appearance, joined us, and invited us to walk into the garden. As yet none of the cultivated flowers appear, but the taste of these women has adorned their arboleda, or orchard, of peach, cherry, and plum, with all the wild flowers of the neighbourhood, some of which grow almost into the little stream that runs through the grounds, and others twine up the stems of the fruit trees now beginning to blossom. I wish, however, all this was more neatly kept. Even Eve weeded her garden, and Adam was commanded to dress as well as to dig the ground. They showed us a beautiful green spot, in a recess formed by two hills, where the young and pretty Lady Cochrane used to bring her parties to dine, and enjoy the country scenery. Her gaiety and liveliness seemed to have produced a strong impression on the natives, who talk of her with admiration and regret. On returning to the house we passed through the more private garden, and I saw, for the first time, the lucuma (Achræs Lucumo), a fruit rare here, but sufficiently abundant in Coquimbo, and which flourishes well in Quillota. The seed, which resembles a chesnut, is enveloped in a pulp, like the medlar in substance, and of an agreeable sweetish flavour. There is also the chirimoya, (an Anonna,⁕23) so famous in Peru; it is a better kind of custard apple, and the trees bear a strong resemblance to 159 each other. We found our old lady sitting where we had left her, distributing advice and plants of various kinds to two or three women and children, who had collected round her while we were in the garden:

Among the little girls were two fishermen’s children with laver, another sort of sea-weed, and several kinds of shell-fish for sale, some of which I had never seen before; and upon my saying so, my young companion and I were asked to come some day to eat of them dressed in the country fashion. It was too late to-day to prepare any; but we were so earnestly pressed to come back after our intended walk to the Quebrada, farther on, and partake of the family dinner, that I, loving to see all things, readily consented; and accordingly returned at two o’clock to the flower-garden house.

We found the mother sitting alone on the estrada, supported by her cushions, with a small low round table before her, on which was spread a cotton cloth, by no means clean. The daughters only served their mother; but ate their own meals in the kitchen by the fire. We were accommodated with seats at the old lady’s table. The first dish that appeared was a small platter of melted marrow, into which we were invited to dip the bread that had been presented to each, the old lady setting the example, and even presenting bits thoroughly sopped, with her fingers, to Miss H., who contrived to pass them on to a puppy who sat behind her. I, not being so near, escaped better; besides, as I really did not dislike the marrow, though I wished in vain for the addition of pepper and salt, I dipped my bread most diligently, and ate heartily. The bread in Chile is 160 not good after the first day. The native bakers usually put suet or lard into it, so that it tastes like cake; a few French bakers, however, make excellent bread; but that we had to-day was of the country, and assimilated well with the melted marrow. After this apetizer, as my countrymen would call it, a large dish of charqui-can was placed before us. It consists of fresh beef very much boiled, with pieces of charqui or dried beef, slices of dried tongue, and pumpkin, cabbage, potatoes, and other vegetables, in the same dish. Our hostess immediately began eating from the dish with her fingers, and invited us to do the same; but one of her daughters brought us each a plate and fork, saying she knew that such was our custom. However, the old lady persisted in putting delicate pieces on our plates with her thumb and finger. The dish was good, and well cooked. It was succeeded by a fowl which was torn to pieces with the hands; and then came another fowl cut up, and laid on sippets strewed with chopped herbs; and then giblets; and then soup; and, lastly, a bowl of milk, and a plate of Harina de Yalli, that is, flour made from a small and delicate kind of maize. Each being served with a cup of the milk, we stirred the flour into it; and I thought it excellent from its resemblance to milk brose. Our drink was the wine of the country; and on going out to the veranda after dinner, apples and oranges were offered to us. As it was not yet time for the old lady to take her siesta, I took the opportunity of asking her concerning the belief of the people of the country as to witches. There is something in her appearance, when surrounded by her five tall daughters, that irresistibly put me in mind of the weird sisters, and I felt half inclined to ask what they were that “look’d not like th’ inhabitants of earth, and yet were on it.” If I had done so, instead of asking the simple question I did, my hostess could not have looked more shocked: she crossed herself, took up the scapulary of the Merced, which she kissed⁕24; and then said, “There have been such things as witches, 161 but it would be mortal sin to believe or consult them; from which, may our lady defend me and mine:” and little more was to be got from her on that subject, though she launched out at great length into a history of saints and miracles, wrought particularly against the heretics; especially the Russians, in favour of the faithful Spaniards. I find, however, that witches here do much the same things as in Europe; they influence the birth of animals, nay, even of children; spoil milk, wither trees, and control the winds. It is scarcely thirty years since the master of a trading ship was thrown into the prison of the Inquisition for making a passage of thirty-five days from Lima, a time then considered too short to have performed the voyage in without preternatural assistance. The people here are so Spanish in their habits, that it would be difficult for any one to detect what portion of their superstitions, their manners, or customs, are derived from the aboriginal Chilenos; and it is particularly so to me, as I have never been in Old Spain; so that where the manners differ from those of the peasantry in Italy, I am equally ignorant whether that difference arises from the Spanish Moresco, or the Chileno ancestry of the people.

The superstitions and the cookery of to-day are both decidedly Spanish, though some of the materials for both are aboriginal Americans: no bad type, I fancy, of the character of the nation.

24th, St. John’s day.—The balmy nucca drop⁕25 of the midnight, between the eve of St. John and this day, seems to have fallen here: all is gay and idle, every body walking about in holyday-clothes. I am sorry, however, to find that the time of the Spaniards is talked of with some little lingering regret. The present government, by suppressing a great many of the religious shows, has certainly relieved 162 the people from a heavy tax, but then it has curtailed their accustomed amusements; and in a climate such as this, where constant labour is not necessary to support life, some consideration ought to be had to the necessity of amusement for those classes, especially where purely mental entertainment is nothing. The festival of St. Peter, peculiarly adapted to a maritime place, should not, I think, have been abolished. On his day, his statue, kept in the Iglesia Matriz, used to be solemnly brought out and placed in an ornamented goleta, decked with flags and ribbons, and gilding, and attendant images. The goleta, manned by fishermen, was rowed round the harbour, followed by all the fishing boats and canoes. Bands of music were stationed on each point bounding the bay; and when the goleta reached them, rockets and guns saluted it.

I have often admired the wisdom of Venice with regard to its festivals; there was scarcely one of the church that was not converted into a national monument. On the feast of the Purification, was celebrated the seizure and recapture of the brides of Venice, under the name of the Marias, which has furnished the subject of tales and poems in all languages. The ceremonies of the last day of the carnival commemorated the suppression of an internal division in the city. But among a thousand others, the greatest, in every sense, was that celebrated on the day of the Ascension, when the doge, proceeding in the Bucentaur to the open sea, solemnly espoused the Adriatic, in commemoration of the triumphant return of the Doge Urseoli on the day of the Ascension, after having subjected the whole of the Adriatic to Venice.⁕26 It may be said, that to engraft the sacred feelings of patriotism thus upon the stock of superstition, only fosters the latter; and that the enlightened policy of this age, ought to be superior to the temporising spirit which such a union demands. But the people are, perhaps, nowhere sufficiently enlightened to be altogether insensible 163 to show, to amusement, and to external associations. Is it not, therefore, wise to turn these shows and associations to the account of patriotism? And is it not more probable that the superstition will be forgotten, while the near and almost personal feelings that belong to national triumph strengthen with time. Shakspeare understood the value of such associations, when he makes Harry the Fifth say—

And who in England has forgotten Agincourt? But who, besides the shoemakers, ever thinks of St. Crispin?

Chile is so obviously a maritime country, shut up as she is to landward, by the Andes from the eastern provinces, and the desert of Atacama from those to the north, that I would, were I its legislator, turn every feeling and passion towards the sea. St. Peter’s day should be a national and naval spectacle: I would distribute prizes to fishermen and boatmen; I would bestow honorary rewards on officers; I would receive and answer petitions and representations from all connected with the sea; in short, I would, on that day, let them feel that the protection of government went hand in hand with that of religion over the most useful, and therefore the most favoured class of Chileno citizens.

June 25th.—I went with a party to the Lagunilla, a small freshwater lake formed from the waters of several little streams, and divided from the sea only by a bank of sand: the road into the valley of the lake is good, but the steepest I ever recollect riding. On leaving Valparaiso, from which the lake is three leagues distant, we found ourselves on a high table land, whence we enjoyed a magnificent view of the central Andes on one hand, and the coast with all its harbours and bays on the other. The little bay of the Lagunilla is said not to be safe for ships, who always make it in coming from the southward. At the bottom of the valley we found a Rancho, which just now looks poor and miserable: but it is the poor time of year; 164 the provisions laid up for the season are nearly exhausted, that is, all but mere necessaries. Everything in the shape of luxury is gone; and the peasant waits, not impatiently however, (for the Chilenos are good-humoured and gay,) for the return of the season that brings his apples to render his bread more palatable, and the green boughs to refresh his sheds and his hedges, which, since the crop was taken off his garden-ground, have gradually disappeared to feed his fire. We had sent a mule laden with provisions to the spot, and some of our party had shot some partridges, which were dressed at the Rancho. Our tablecloth was spread in a pleasant green place, and we dined within hearing of the little rill that murmurs down the valley, rendering it green and fertile. A few fruit trees grew among the huge blocks of stone, that in its winter fury it has washed from the neighbouring mountain. It was the first party I had joined since my arrival, and I had done it with reluctance, because I am scarcely yet fit company for the young and the cheerful; but I am glad I did so. Fine weather, exercise, and agreeable scenery, must do good both to mind and body; I feel better than I had ever hoped to be when I first landed on these shores.

As we returned, we perceived an English frigate, the Aurora, just going into Valparaiso from Brazil; she saluted Lord Cochrane’s flag as she entered. His Lordship himself is still in Santiago; the world says, occupied in endeavouring to obtain from the justice of the government the arrears of pay and prize money for the squadron. Some of his friends, I think injudiciously, and I am confident untruly, talk of him as interfering with the new government regulations to be made. Others, perhaps better informed, represent his business to be the refutation of the absurd charges brought against him by San Martin.⁕27 These charges have proceeded from the basest motives: envy of his reputation, jealousy of his actions, and fear of his resentment; besides the unwise anger occasioned by his esteeming it “more honourable to show marks of open displeasure, than to entertain 165 secret hatred,” on the discovery of San Martin’s infamous designs against the state he had sworn to serve. These charges are so frivolous, so mean, so paltry, so much what a thief at the foot of the gallows would be apt to lay against an innocent man who had offended him, that I have always felt that, in this case, to vindicate the integrity and freedom from corruption of such a man, would be an affront to his virtues.⁕28

27th.—I paid a visit to Madame Zenteno the governor’s lady, a pleasing, lively little woman, who received me very politely, and sent for her husband, who came immediately, and seemed delighted to display the English comforts of the apartment I was received in. An English carpet, an English grate, and even English coals, were all very agreeable on this cold raw day. Zenteno assured me that he found a fire thus burned in an open stove was the best promoter of conversation, and regretted the many years he had passed without even guessing at its comforts. He is properly anxious to promote a taste for the elegancies of civilised life; but under any other circumstances, I should say that there was even a little affectation in his great admiration for everything English. However, the people of Valparaiso are indebted to him for considerable improvements in the roads and streets; and a plan for a new market-place, as soon as the funds will permit, is to be carried into execution. These things seem little to Europeans. But they forget that this Valparaiso, one of the greatest ports on this side of the vast continent of South America, is little more in appearance than an English fishing town. Sidmouth is a capital city in comparison. From the governor’s house I went to the jail, a strong uncomfortable building now empty. The prisoners are transferred to the hospital of San Juan de Dios; and I am ashamed to say the Spanish prisoners from Lima, sent by San Martin, are there also, along with the common felons. The Spaniards were in so wretched a condition on their arrival, that the English inhabitants, in order to save them from starving, have raised a 166 subscription; and one of the merchants daily sees their food distributed.

29th.—The Independencia, one of the Chileno squadron, came in to-day. She was left by Lord Cochrane on the coast to the northward, for the purposes of surveying, aiding the cause of independence, and procuring provisions.⁕29 The Araucana had been left with her, but while she was detached on a particular service to the Bay of Lorero, the captain and others being on shore on duty, the master, gunner, and boatswain mutinied, seized the ship, and having landed all the Chilenos, and such English as would not join them, at Dolores, they, with sixteen men, sailed, and have not since been heard of. Forty-seven of the crew, under the captain, are preserved to the service; and it is remarkable that there was not a Chileno among the deserters.

The Independencia has brought some good surveys, and in some cases has been of use to the good cause, by encouraging the coast towns to declare their adherence to the independent governments, in whose territories they are situated. It is however to be regretted, that the intemperate behaviour of one of the officers, for which indeed he atoned with his life, occasioned some disturbances, which must, I fear, have a bad effect.

30th.—To-day 300 of the prisoners from Lima were sent off to Santiago, some on foot, and others, whose age and infirmities rendered it impossible for them to march, in waggons. Among the latter, one old man with thin grey hair was seated, and was heard to apostrophise the sea, whose shores he was leaving, as the only road to his native country; and feebly lamenting, he sat carelessly on the edge of the vehicle; when, just as it turned to go up the first cuesta, he fell and died on the spot,—it was not of the fall, but of a broken 167 heart. His companions say, that, with the word Spain on his lips, he died in the cart and then fell. These are things to make the heart ache; and the more painfully, as that the evil comes not from the ordinary course of nature, wherein men’s sufferings and trials come proportioned to their strength, or from that high hand which is merciful as powerful; but from man—man who preys upon his fellows; and who to cruelty adds hypocrisy, and commits his crimes in the sacred name of virtue.⁕30 The story of these prisoners combines all that is base and cruel, and cowardly; but when was a cruel man brave!⁕31

It is the festival of Nuestra Señora del Pilar La Avogada de los Marineros. How could I do otherwise than observe it? I went to my old friend at the flower-garden, who is commonly called La Chavelita; and, as I knew she intended being at the ceremony which takes place at the church of the Merced, I obtained permission to accompany her; and the afternoon was productive of considerable amusement and information, which I could not have obtained without such a companion. In the first place, I do not know if I should otherwise ever have had courage to go into a ventana or wine-house, which I did to-day. We arrived at the church-door too early; and, after walking up and down the space proposed for the procession, we went to the said ventana, which is exactly opposite to the church. I imagined, at first, that it was a private house belonging to a friend of La Chavelita; and the table at the door set out with fruit and cakes for sale, seemed to me to be only a compliment to the festival. On entering a very large room, with benches round three sides and a brassero in the middle, I saw on the fourth side of the apartment, a table covered with jugs and bottles, containing various kinds of liquor, and glasses of different sizes by them. On one of the benches sat two religious of the order of the Merced, with their long, full, white robes with black crosses and enormous hats, smoking and talking 168 politics. The exile of the bishop; the probable effect of the expected assembly on church affairs; and some murmuring at the choice of the provincial of the church of San Domingo, Don Celidon Marques, as deputy for Valparaiso, while the worthier brethren of the Merced had been neglected, were their principal themes. Our entrance interrupted them for an instant; when, after a few minutes whispering, in which I now and then heard the words Viuda Inglez, they resumed their politics; and then, having finished their segars, walked out. Meantime I had observed several elderly fat women running about, and mixing various liquors, and carrying them into several inner apartments; some of these liquors I tasted. Little spirits or wine was called for; but several kinds of sherbet, the best of which is Luca, were in great request. The Luca, is an infusion of Culen, Canela wild cinnamon, with a little syrup, and is said to be as wholesome as it is pleasant. The house shortly began to fill. Company after company of young men arrived, and were shown into different rooms, and I then found out where I was. Some parties called for dinners of so many dishes, others for wine; some for sweet drinks and cakes, and music; and all for segars. Some good-looking girls now made their appearance, and with guitars entered the rooms where music had been ordered. Soon we heard the sound of singing and dancing, and I was quite satisfied that every body was happy and merry, and left the place, persuaded that the evening would be still gayer, and that the dances I had often seen among the very common people in the smallest public-houses, as I rode through the Almendral at night, are practised, though more privately, by the decenter sort, in these more quiet houses. Gambling is very common here among the lower orders as well as among the gentry. Every rude nation gambles; every very refined people does the same. The savage has in the intervals of hunting and making war too much leisure; life stagnates, he must have a stimulus—he gambles. The gentleman of civilised society needs not hunt for his subsistence; and, if he does not do it for exercise, he also, to procure that stimulus which seems necessary to existence, gambles. Commercial 169 speculations and war are only gambling on a larger scale. Intellectual pleasures alone supply sufficient stimulus to exertion and excitement to curiosity, on which gambling to see the end principally depends, and leave man the richer and better for the exercise. Several games are played here so like the games of Europe, and of the East, that they must of course have been imported by the Spaniards. The sort of golf played on horseback in Persia, is played in the same manner here.⁕32 Cards, dice, and billiards, are seen within doors; bowls and skittles, and flying kites, which is equally the sport of the old and young, are exercised in the open air. One kind of bowls is new to me. The space of playing is always under a shed. A frame of wood being laid down, a floor of clay, about 30 feet long by from 15 to 18 feet broad, is very nicely laid, the frame-work rising about six inches, or from that to a foot, round the whole: a ring fixed on a pivot and turning with the slightest touch, is placed about one-third from the upper end of the floor; the player seats himself on the frame at the opposite end, and endeavours to send his bowl through the ring without striking it. This is a very favourite game, and I am persuaded that few of the neighbouring peons do not lose and win, not only all their money, but even their clothes at it, half-a-dozen times every year.

It was now time, however, to repair to the church. And there, kneeling before the high altar, we heard the mass to our lady of the glittering brow, and prayed for the safety of the living seamen, and for the souls of those who were gone. I cannot and I will not think it unlawful to join in such prayers; and I never felt my devotion more fervent: but I was soon roused from it to join in the procession, and then, indeed, I felt my Protestant prejudices return. Our lady was taken out dressed in brown satin, and jewels of value, and carried towards the sea, through a lane formed of boughs of green myrtle and bay. Here and there was a shrine at which she stopped, and a chaunt 170 was sung. Then, having thus visited San Josef, Santa Dolores, and Santa Geltrudes, she was carried back at sunset to her own altar, and the Ave Maria Stella was sung. The paltry decoration of the saints here discovers, by daylight, the hideousness of the superstition: the looking glasses and the toys are coarse and inelegant. Now, night had come on, all this was hid, “Ave Maria Stella” brought back Italy and that magic power, which even in her decrepitude throws lustre over her, to my mind. How many a balmy evening I have listened with delight to the voices singing Ave Maria in the modulated tones of Italy, while Rome herself was hushed at the moment into religious, awful silence: all save the chaunt mingled with the noise of the fountains. Of all the characters of the Virgin I love this best:—

July 1st.—Late last-night His Majesty’s ship Alacrity came in from Lima, and brought me letters from my friends of the Doris. She also brought intelligence concerning Lima, which confirms all that we have heard of the hateful though plausible San Martin. It is well known that the merchant Don Pedro Abadia, besides being one of the richest merchants in South America, was also one of the most enlightened, liberal, and respectable men. For this excellent person San Martin had always professed the greatest friendship, and made use of his knowledge and talents in the regulation of his custom-houses and his taxes. But having obtained his end thus far, the riches of Abadia excited his cupidity, and he proceeded by the basest 171 treachery to procure an excuse for arresting him. Knowing that an immense property of Abadia’s was in the hands of the royalists at Pasco, San Martin instructed two monks to go to him and offer to convey such letters to the commanders of the Spanish troops as might, at least, prevent the absolute ruin of the property, which chiefly consisted in mines, and in most expensive machinery which he had imported from England, with the idea and the hope of improving the country by the introduction of such machinery into it. The monks of course betrayed Abadia. He was thrown into prison, and tried before a tribunal instituted by San Martin. Yet, as his letters had been strictly confined to the business of his estates and machinery, he was acquitted, although the sentence was sent back more than once for revisal. However, before he was liberated, he was forced to pay an immense fine; and his wife and children were detained as hostages for his banishing himself to Panama, or some place not nearer. He took refuge on board the Alacrity, and then went into the Doris, where he won the esteem and regard of every person on board both ships. San Martin has vulgarly been said to drink: I believe this is not true; but he is an opium eater, and his starts of passion are so frequent and violent, that no man feels his head safe. Every thing is given to the soldiers, therefore his government is popular with them; but it is precarious, and it is thought not impossible that Lacerna, the royalist general, may recover Lima; in which case, it is expected that he will declare Peru independent, and dismiss by fair means or foul the Exercito Libertador. It is true that military despotism is the greatest curse under which a nation can suffer. But it never lasts long. One change has been effected, therefore the possibility of another is proved: the bands of tyranny are slackened; and the people will grow, and be educated, a little roughly perhaps, but knowledge will advance; and, as knowledge is power, they will, at no distant period, be able to shake off the tyranny both of foreign governments and domestic despots, and to compel their rulers to acknowledge that they were made for the people, and not the people for them.

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July 2d.—To-day, as I was standing on the hill behind my house admiring the beautiful landscape before me, and the shadows over the sea as the clouds rolled swiftly along, and sometimes concealed and sometimes displayed the cliffs of Valparaiso, the scene was rendered more grand by the firing a salute from the Aurora, the smoke from which, after creeping in fleecy whiteness along the water, gradually dilated into volumes of grey cloud, and mixed with the vapours that lay on the bosoms of the hills. This salute was in honour of Lord Cochrane, who had gone on board that frigate on his return from Santiago. His Lordship rode down to my house in the evening to tea. He tells me he has leave of absence for four months, with the schooner Montezuma at his disposal, and that he means to go to visit the estate in Conception decreed to him by the government long ago; but from which he has, as yet, derived no advantage, although it is one of the most fertile of that fertile province. The truth is, it is so near the Indians’ frontier, and so exposed to their depredations, that it has lain for some years unoccupied, and the produce has been only in part gathered in. The bringing such an estate again into cultivation would be a public much more than a private benefit. The very example of so courageous an undertaking would do much; and, in a short time, it might be hoped that that delightful land, which has suffered more than any of the other provinces, will once more be what it was when Villa Rica was its capital, and when the author of Robinson Crusoe, collecting the narratives of the English adventurers of his day concerning the southern part of Chile, described this province as the terrestrial paradise, and the inhabitants as beings worthy to possess it.⁕34

⁕34 See De Foe’s New Voyage round the World.

July 7th.—Yesterday morning I rode early to the port, on Lord Cochrane’s invitation, to join a party which was to sail with him in the steam-vessel, the Rising-star, to his estate of Quintero, which lies due north from this place about twenty miles, though the road by land, being round the bay of Concon, is thirty.

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Our company consisted of Don Jose Zenteno, governor of Valparaiso; his daughter Señora donna Dolores; the honourable Captain Frederick Spencer, of His Majesty’s ship Alacrity; Captain Crosbie, Captain Wilkinson, some other officers of the Patriot squadron with whom I am not acquainted, besides some other gentlemen. The admiral went on board with me about ten o’clock. The first thing I did was to visit the machinery, which consists of two steam-engines, each of forty-five horse power, and the wheels covered so as not to show in the water from without. The vessel is a fine polacre, and was in great forwardness before Lord Cochrane came here, but only arrived in these seas this year. It was with no small delight that I set my foot on the deck of the first steam-vessel that ever navigated the Pacific, and I thought, with exultation, of the triumphs of man over the obstacles nature seems to have placed between him and the accomplishment of his imaginations. With what rapture would the breast of Almagro have been filled, if some magician could have shown him, in the enchanted glass of futurity, the port of Valparaiso filled with vessels from Europe, and from Asia, and from states not yet in existence, and our stately vessel gliding smooth and swiftly through them without a sail, against the wind and waves, carrying on her decks a stronger artillery than he ever commanded, and bearing on board a hero whose name, even in Peru and Chile, was to surpass, not only his own, but those of his more famed companions, the Pizarros.

The cruel policy of Spain with regard to these countries always repressed any attempt at establishing a coasting trade, although the shores of Chile abound with harbours most commodious for the purpose. Hence, these harbours were either not surveyed or so erroneously set down in the published maps as to deter ships of all nations, Spanish as well as others, from attempting them, and the whole traffic is carried on over some of the most difficult roads in the world by mules. For instance, the copper of Coquimbo, which in a direct line lies only three degrees and a half from Valparaiso, is all conveyed by a very mountainous and stony road on the backs of mules; 174 while not a boat is employed for carriage. The enormous taxes laid on water carriage under the name of port dues, &c. in Valparaiso, and which bear more upon small vessels conveying even provisions than any others, prevents not only the trade which should be a nursery for the seamen of Chile, but also the cultivation of many fertile tracts along the coast. The nearness of the mountains to the shore, and their very abrupt descent, prevent the existence of very large rivers or such as are navigable for any extent, but the mouths of the smaller streams form little harbours, whence the produce of their astonishingly fertile banks being floated down from the interior might be embarked with convenience. Yet I do not know one, where any thing approaching to a coasting trade is encouraged. Hence, the coal of Conception, though abundant and good, and worked within 300 miles, is dearer in Valparaiso than that brought from England. Hence, too, the tracts of alluvial soil, washed from the nearer hills by the winter rains, and kept fruitful by the fresh lakes which are formed every where by those rains collecting in the valleys, are left uncultivated, though fit for the production of every vegetable; and now these tracts only contribute to the summer grazing of the cattle; whereas, if applied to the culture of the more nourishing and productive vegetables, sheep, concerning which the greatest difficulty here is winter fodder, might be encouraged to any extent; and the wool, which is of excellent quality, would become a valuable article of trade. But who will grow turnip or beet, when he must pay as much for the harbour dues of a boat to carry it to market as the whole culture has cost? Or who will feed sheep when the wool, if dyed or manufactured, pays a duty on exportation higher than the price of cloths imported into the country? I particularly recollect that at Coquimbo, in the Copper-mine country, Don Felipe de Solar paid more in duty upon some copper vessels that he was exporting than the price of equally good and weighty articles imported from Bengal. This is a direct and most oppressive tax on industry, and by its effects retards the population of the country, as well as its civilisation. These reflections were suggested naturally by the sight of 175 the little harbours and creeks of the shore as we passed rapidly along, and by our situation on board the first vessel that has brought to these seas the most complete triumph of the genius of man over the obstacles presented by brute matter. I trust the time is not far distant, when the Rising Star will not be the only steam-vessel on the coast, and that the wise and benevolent views with which she was brought out will be fulfilled.⁕35 Nothing can be better adapted for packets on these coasts. The regular winds which now force ships out as far as Juan Fernandez, in order to make a reasonable passage from Lima to Valparaiso, are never so strong as to hinder the working of a steam ship; and the facility of communication between these as well as the intermediate ports would not only promote their commercial interests, but be a means of security against the attempts of any enemy these countries have to fear from abroad. As long as Europe continues quiet, and until Spain recovers from the madness of civil dissension, perhaps South America is safe enough from foreign invasion: but if any of the powers that have not acknowledged the independence of the states should go to war with Spain, who can say whether, availing themselves of not having made that acknowledgement, they might not be disposed to seize on some part of them as provinces de jure belonging to the mother-country; and I confess that a French invasion (for I will not think England so wicked) would be a most fearful misfortune to these rising states, and one from which nothing but a naval force could defend them.

I had as much conversation with Zenteno as my yet imperfect knowledge of Spanish would permit. He seems truly desirous of the good of Chile; but wonderfully unknowing in those things which would most contribute to it. The morning, however, passed pleasantly away; and we sat down to a table which Europe and America equally supplied with luxuries; and amused ourselves, perhaps unseasonably, 176 with the gluttony of the curate of Placilia, a village near the mouth of the little river Ligua, which runs into the bay of Quintero, and on whose banks lies the town of La Ligua, famous for its pasture, and its breed of horses. The poor curate, who had on various occasions been treated with English beer by his foreign friends, now took Champagne for white beer, and drank it accordingly, vowing he would grant absolution unconditionally for a hundred years, to all who drank of such divine liquor, and would doubtless have made a second Caliban of himself, and worshipped the bottle-bearer, but for an accident that rendered us all a little grave. A small bolt in the machinery gave way, principally from imperfect fitting, as this was the first time the machinery had been fairly tried in these seas; and our voyage was stopped just as we were nearly abreast of Quintero. The wind was a‑head; but we were so near that it was voted almost by acclamation that we should go on, and accordingly we trusted to the tide to take us into port. But—

The evening closed in, and it was a dull, raw, foggy night: those not accustomed to the sea grew faint and weary. The curate, and other partakers of the white beer, began to feel its effects, combined with those of the motion of the vessel, now considerably agitated by the waves, which began to rise obedient to a very fresh contrary wind which had sprung up; and all agreed to retire to rest. Shortly after the strangers were in bed, the sails which had not been bent, so sure had we been of making our passage, were got to the yards, and the first thing that happened was, that the two chimneys belonging to the engines went through the foresail. Then the wind and weather increased, and the furniture began to roll about; and at last, in the morning, we found ourselves farther than ever from our place of destination. However, breakfast gave us courage; and it was determined to persevere a few hours longer: but the weather grew worse and worse; the sky became blacker and blacker,

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So at length we bore up for Valparaiso, and landed there at two o’clock to-day.

A great pleasure awaited us, and almost consoled us for the failure of our expedition; that is, if ever public news consoles one for private disappointment. Mr. Hogan met me on the beach with the joyful intelligence that the Congress of the United States had acknowledged the independence of the Spanish American colonies of Mexico, Columbia, Buenos Ayres, Peru, and Chile. This is indeed a step gained, and so naturally too, as to be worth twenty, where there could have been a suspicion of intrigue: but the United States, themselves so lately emancipated from the thraldom of the mother-country, are the natural assertors of the independence of their American brethren; and the moral of the political history of the times would have been less striking had any other state set the example.⁕36

I dined at Mr. ——’s, and in the evening Lord Cochrane joined our party, and we shortly after had a scene that I at least shall never forget. His Lordship’s secretary, Mr. Bennet, arrived from Santiago, whither he had been on business, and brought with him Col. Don Fausto del Hoyo. This gentleman had been taken prisoner by Lord Cochrane at Valdivia; and His Lordship had obtained from the government a promise of generous treatment for the Colonel. However, after the Admiral sailed, the same unjust and cruel restrictions were laid on him, as on all the other prisoners of war of every rank. He was thrust into a dark dungeon, and there detained without fire, without light, without books, as if the cruel treatment of individual prisoners could have forced Old Spain to acknowledge the independence of Chile! He had now been liberated on parole by Lord Cochrane’s intervention; and never, never, shall I forget the fervent expression of acknowledgment, not in words indeed, with which he 178 met his generous conqueror, nor the gentle and modest manner in which they were received and put an end to by His Lordship. After this had passed, I did not wonder that, notwithstanding our disappointment in the steam-vessel, His Lordship appeared in better spirits than I have yet seen him in.

July 8th.—To-day, a young man born in Cundinamarca, but brought up in Quito, came to stay with me, that I may put him in the way of improving a great natural talent for drawing. He has been long on board Lord Cochrane’s ship, in I know not what capacity, and has displayed considerable taste in some sketches of costume, &c. The people of Quito pride themselves on retaining that excellence in painting which distinguished their predecessors of the time of Pizarro. Of course the Christian priests have introduced European models and European practice; but the talent for the imitative arts is said to be inherent in all, or almost all the Quiteños; and it is certain that the painters, whether of portraits or history, that are to be met with in various parts of South America, are almost universally Quiteños. My scholar is gentle and persevering; rather indolent; possessed of good sense, and a strong poetical feeling. If I had him in Europe, where he could see good pictures, and above all, good drawings, I have no doubt but he would be a painter; as it is, seeing nothing much better than his own, there is little chance of very great improvement. I have heard extravagant praises of the pictures of various South American painters; but these were given by persons who probably never saw a first-rate picture in Europe, especially as they often in the same breath extolled their sculpture also to the skies. Now, on enquiry, I found that all the sculpture practised here consists in carving the heads, hands, and feet of the saints to be dressed: these are painted afterwards, and I have no doubt give a strong impression of reality; but that is not sculpture. It perhaps may come near to Shakspeare’s Hermione, the maker of which “would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly is he her ape.” But sculpture is not the ape, but the perfecter of nature; so I hear with distrust all these splendid accounts of the 179 pictures and sculpture by native hands that adorn the churches of Quito and Lima. Such as I have seen here, in the ceiling of the Merced for instance, are well for the place; and are evidently the work of some of the Spanish monks, who have decorated their churches with as much of splendour in the taste of Europe as their circumstances would permit. The likenesses I have seen are certainly a degree better than the portraits of China, but they are equally stiff; and though the Madonas have an air of grace something like those ancient ones painted before the revival of art, they are ill drawn, and, above every thing, the extremities are hardly defined at all. I do not believe that there is a single painter, native or foreigner, now in the whole of Chile. I am sorry that they have something of more pressing importance than the fine arts to attend to.

July 10th.—Capt. —— breakfasted with me, and afterwards was so kind as to accompany me in a round of calls, by way of returning the visits of the English ladies here. It is curious, at this distance from home, to see specimens of such people as one meets no where else but among the Brangtons, in Madame D’Arblay’s Cecilia, or the Mrs. Eltons of Miss Austin’s admirable novels; and yet these are, after all, the people most likely to be here. The country is new; the government unacknowledged by our own; the merchants are chiefly such as sell by commission, for houses established in larger and older states; and, as all Englishmen, from the highest to the lowest, love to have their home with them, the clerks, who fall naturally into these sort of employments, either bring or find suitable wives: therefore society, as far as relates to the English, is of a very low tone. The sympathies of the heart, however, are as lively here as in more polished circles; and, while one turns one moment in disgust from the man who familiarly calls his wife by one nickname, and his daughter by another; yet the next, one looks at him with respect as the benevolent receiver and comforter of the sick and the dying, whose house has been the asylum, and his family the attendants, of more than one of his countrymen, who have ended their being thus far from their friends and native land.

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16th.—We have had two slight shocks of an earthquake to-day. The sensations occasioned by them are particularly disagreeable. In all other convulsions of nature it seems possible to do, or at least attempt, something to avert danger. We steer the ship in a storm for a port; our conductors promise to lead the lightning harmless from our heads: but the earthquake seems to rock the very foundations of the globe, and escape or shelter seems equally impossible. The physical effect too is unpleasant—it resembles sea-sickness. The frequency of earthquakes here by no means renders the people insensible to their occurrence. In the streets of Valparaiso, I recollect seeing them run out, fall upon their knees, and pray to all the saints. Here, in the country, the peasants leave off work, pull off their hats, beat their breasts, and cry Misericordia, and all leave their houses. One of the shocks to-day lasted nearly a minute; it was accompanied by a loud noise, like the sudden escape of vapour from a close place. It is said that earthquakes are most frequent about the beginning of the rainy season. Some however, I know not on what data, have fixed on the months of October and November as most liable to them. Some writers have asserted, that the provinces of Copiapo and Coquimbo are exempt from them; yet twice within the last five years Coquimbo has been totally destroyed, and Copiapo seriously injured, and once nearly ruined. Nearly ninety years ago, during one at Valparaiso, the sea overflowed the whole of the Almendral; and about the same period nearly one-third of Santiago, the capital, was thrown down.

18th.—The earthquakes have been followed by two days of incessant rain; but the thermometer, though it is mid-winter, has not fallen below 50°. The rivulet between the Almendral and my garden is so swollen, that there has been no communication with the town these two days, and a man was drowned yesterday in attempting to cross it. There is a report, that this government will join the Peruvian in an attack on Arica, where the royalists are again masters, and that the Admiral is to conduct the expedition. ’Tis not probable. In the first place, His Lordship has returned to his country 181 seat, having leave of absence for four months; and in the next, the ships of the Chileno squadron are in no state to go to sea; and as the officers and seamen have not been paid, it is scarcely possible for the government to think of employing them.

22d.—The wet weather continues, though with hours of sunshine occasionally. I have been delighted with reading the first new books I have seen in Chile; Lord Byron’s Foscari, Cain, and Sardanapalus. He cannot write without stirring our feelings. Foscari has in it passages that, though they perhaps owe some of their magic to my actual situation so far from home, surely must touch every heart. But who that has never left their sweet home except on an expedition of pleasure, can feel like me this passage—

The reading of these dramas has afforded me great enjoyment—and ’tis the first for many a day.

July 24th.—I went to the port to dine with my friends, the H——s, and while there received the account of the first meeting of the constituent assembly, yesterday, which appears to me to have, in one instance at least, taken on itself the duties of a legislative assembly; perhaps it is difficult to separate the two: there were twenty-three members present, and seven absent. The Director went in state to the chambers of the convention, and his arrival was announced by a salvo of artillery, without which nothing is done here. He opened the session with a short speech, adverting to the mistakes and untimely dissolution of the convention of 1810, and anticipating a happier result from this. The members then proceeded to the election of a president and vice-president; when, amid cries of “Viva la patria!” “Viva la convencion!” the Director presented a memorial, which he entreated might be speedily read, and retired. The paper contains a congratulatory address to the convention; a rapid sketch of the Director’s political life; advice as to the measures 182 to be pursued, and a statement of the wants of the country; concluding with a resignation of his authority.

The whole memorial does the Director the highest credit, excepting the resignation. This constituent, or, as it is called, preparative convention, surely is not competent to accept it. Indeed, the members appear to be aware of it, for they have insisted on his resuming his authority; and after a long and learned speech from the vice-president about the Romans, and the Carthagenians, and the Phenicians, a deputation waited on the Director, and conferring his office anew upon him, paid him those compliments so justly due, on account of his past administration. I think this transaction a mistake on both sides; the preparative convention, chosen by the Director himself, was not the proper assembly into whose hands he could resign the authority committed to him on the recovery of the freedom of Chile after the day of Chacabuco, nor could he receive it anew from the hands of that convention. But if an assembly, chosen by the people, even in form, were to meet, then and there would these things be properly done: I may be mistaken; perhaps he understands his countrymen. Of course, the meeting of the convention occasions a great deal of gaiety among the women, and a great deal of speculation among the men. Some are fixing beforehand the new custom-house regulations; some the number of old laws to be abrogated, and the new to be enacted. Many are astonished that no direct provision is made for the navy of Chile, and the payment of both that and the army, all being in arrears, so that neither soldiers nor sailors are in a state to be depended on in case of necessity. But Chile is considered safe; and the minister Rodriguez, acting, I presume, upon the principle, that individual riches make public prosperity, is making private speculations jointly with his friend Arcas the merchant, and purchasing with the government-money all the tobacco and spirits now in the market, in contemplation of the heavy duties he means to lay on these articles by the new reglamento.

July 30th.—As there are no places of public amusement for gentlefolks at Valparaiso, the English, when they make a holyday, go in 183 parties to the neighbouring hills or valleys, and under the name of a pic-nic, contrive to ride, eat and drink, and even to dance away most gaily. I joined one of the soberer kind of these, and rode over a good deal of ground with my younger friends; sometimes over steep rocks, sometimes through dingles and bushy dells, and here and there through bits of meadow, where the finest mushrooms in the world grow. The peach and cherry trees are in blossom, and all looks gay and cheerful. Most of us went to the place of rendezvous in the valley of Palms on horseback; but some preferred the quieter conveyance of a Chile waggon, drawn by four noble oxen, who had to drag the additional weight of an excellent dinner. The spot was at the foot of a steep hill covered with myrtle: our canopy, hung something like the draperies that Claude sometimes introduces in his landscapes, was the striped and starred banner of the United States, whose consul was the father of the feast; and close by us flowed a rivulet of sparkling water. The kind-hearted Chilena women of the neighbouring rancho came round us, assisted in our little arrangements, brought us flowers, and helped us to cut the myrtle of which we made our seats. Some were very happy: but happiness is not of everyday growth, and there are not many hands destined to pluck the golden bough; but it is always worth while to be cheerful, and I enjoyed the day more than I thought three months ago I could have enjoyed any thing.

August 2d.—Mr. Hogan brought Judge Prevost, the American consul-general, who acts also in a sort of ministerial capacity, to visit me. He is of the family of Prevost of Geneva, which has, although retaining at home the first of the name⁕37, given many respectable, and some remarkable, citizens both to England and the United States. He is warmly interested in the fate of Chile, and regards, with the fondness which his own country and that of his father entitle him to feel, this rising republic. But I am sure that he is wrong in endeavouring to impress on the government that Chile has no business 184 with ships of war, or of trade, for these hundred years to come, and that she should hire the former, and employ foreign carriers in lieu of the latter; the interest of the nation which would in such case be the gainer is so palpable, that I wonder it did not make the Judge hesitate to offer or support it. But the simple-minded Chilenos are no match for Genevese sagacity, united to North American speculation.

⁕37 Professor Prevost.

4th.—A great deal of interest has been excited by the circumstances under which the captain of an American trading vessel has committed suicide: two years ago he was shipwrecked in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, and made his way with one or two wretched companions along the coast in his whale boat to this place, subsisting on shell-fish and seals. He returned to North America, where he had a wife and family, and employed the greater part of his property in fitting out a whaler, with which he hoped to redeem his past losses, and on board of which he once more entered the Pacific. But at the end of a long cruize he put into Valparaiso without a single fish; and after walking about in a wretched state of despondence for two or three days, he retired to his cabin, wrote to his family; and leaving instructions to have his body committed to the deep, he shot himself!

August 5th.—The news from the south is not of the most pleasant nature: there has been a serious conspiracy at Valdivia; it was crushed by stratagem. At some meeting, convened under I know not what pretext, the whole of the officers implicated were so placed as that each should find himself by the person employed to seize him, and they were all accordingly secured. Their fate is not yet determined. The expedition headed by Beauchef, that was to have gone to Chiloe under the protection of the Lautaro, has, on this and other accounts, but chiefly for want of provisions, been now so long delayed that there are no hopes of its proceeding this season; and Quintanilla has probably another year in which to display a loyalty like that of the old knights of romance, rather than any thing one meets with in modern days. Shut up in the little port of San Carlos, surrounded 185 by a wild Indian enemy, threatened by the regular troops and ships of Chile, with no communication direct or indirect from the mother country; he has never faltered for a single instant.

August 12th.—Mr. D—— came to breakfast, and to escort me to Concon, a parish about fifteen miles from hence, lying on the great river of Aconcagua, which flows from the pass of the Andes called the Cumbre, and waters the fertile valley of Santa Rosa and the garden-land of Quillota. The ride is pleasant, although most of the road is so bad that it would scarcely be deemed passable in England; but I have seen worse in the Appenines. It winds in many places along the edges of precipices. From Valparaiso to Viña a la Mar, upon the little river Margamarga, the scenery is the same as that immediately about the port. Steep hills and rocks mostly covered with flowering shrubs; little cultivation except in the glens, which, formed by the rivulets, open to the sea, and where gardens and patches of barley surround every hut. The ocean is always in sight; sometimes breaking at the foot of the high rocks we passed over, and sometimes washing gently in upon the yellow sands at the mouth of the streams from the cultivated valleys. At Viña a la Mar, a fine estate belonging to a branch of the Carrera family, the scenery begins to change. The plain there is wide and open, the vineyard and potrero very extensive; the shrubs assume almost the appearance of trees; on the hills there are frequent plots of fine grass, where sheep and cattle find abundant pasture; and the palm here and there adorns the sides of the vales. The near view is like some of the finest parts of Devonshire; but the hills of Quillota, over which the volcano of Aconcagua, which forms a remarkable point in the central ridge of the Andes, towers, render it unlike any thing in England, I might say in Europe. The high mountains of Switzerland are always seen from a point extremely elevated; but here, from the sea-shore, the whole mass of the cordillera rises at once, at only ninety miles’ distance. This gives a peculiarity to the landscape of Chile which distinguishes it, even more than its warm colour, from any I have seen before. The proprietor of Viña a la Mar is improving his estate in every way; miles of new fences are rising, thickets are disappearing, corn 186 is coming up in the valleys, and the best breed of sheep is beginning to people the hills. All the digging of ditches, &c. is still done with a wooden spade. I did indeed once see a man labouring in his garden with the blade-bone of a sheep tied to a stick by way of a spade; and I have read that the ancient people of Chile ploughed their land with the horns of goats and the bones of oxen.⁕38

From Viña a la Mar the country improves in picturesque beauty; and at length the lovely valley formed by the river opens at once, bounded at either end only by the ocean and the Andes.

I found my friends Mrs. and Miss Miers, whom I was going to see, busy on one of the hills digging for bulbous roots, which abound here. I immediately joined them, and proceeded on foot towards their house, which is near the river; not too near, however, because the winter floods often encroach largely on the neighbouring plain.

Mr. Miers came to Chile with a large apparatus for rolling copper, with dies for stamping metal, and other machinery, which are adapted only for a country in a much higher state of advance. He has, however, converted some of his apparatus into excellent flour mills, and has likewise set up some circular saws for the purpose of sawing barrel-staves, there being abundance of wood fit for the purpose in the neighbourhood. But the whole of Mr. Miers’s establishment is at least one hundred years too much civilised for Chile. However, the very sight of saw mills and turning lathes, to say nothing of the more complicated machinery, will do good in time: I may regret that they are little likely soon to repay the spirited individuals who brought them first here,—but they will do good.

After a very pleasant day spent in seeing things fit and unfit for the present state of things in the country, and in admiring the various sites and habits of many plants I have never before seen, Mr. and Mrs. Miers rode with me to Quintero on the morning of the

⁕38 But there were no oxen in Chile before the Spaniards.

13th of August.—After fording the rapid river of Aconcagua in three branches, the road for three leagues lies along a wild and desolate tract of sea-beach. On one hand are great sand hills, where no 187 green thing finds root, and which are high enough to exclude the view of every other object; on the other hand, a tremendous surf, which permits not the approach of boat or canoe, beats unceasingly. Halfway between Concon and Quintero, the great lake of Quintero communicates with the sea. In mild weather it only drains through the sand; at other times it breaks through its bar, and the ford is not always safe. When we passed, it was covered with various kinds of water-birds: the flamingo, with his rose-coloured bill and wings; the swan of Chile, whose feet are white, and his neck and head jet black; a brown bird, with wings like burnished bronze, and a head, bill, and feet exactly resembling the Egyptian ibis; and geese, water hens, and all the duck tribe, innumerable.

On leaving the beach, we ascended a low hill, and immediately entered a broad green forest walk, so level that it seemed to be the work of art; on either side brushwood between us and the taller trees whose leaves breathed odours, gave shelter to flocks of wood pigeons, ground doves, and partridges, among whom my old pointer, Don, seemed bewildered with joy; but every now and then, after a point, looked back as if reproachfully, because there was no gun of the party. The south-west wind here bends the trees into the same figure as in Devonshire, excepting where the gently undulating hills afford shelter.

The house Lord Cochrane is building at Quintero is far from being in the best or pleasantest part of the estate; and it has the great inconvenience of having no water near it. But had Quintero become, as was once intended, the port for the ships of war, the new house would have possessed every advantage of being not only near the squadron, but of commanding a view of the whole. The bay of Quintero, or rather the Heradura, is very beautiful; better sheltered from the fierce north winds than that of Valparaiso, better furnished with wood and water in itself, and nearer to the supplies from Quillota and the valley of Santa Rosa for provisioning ships. Some rocks, very well known, lie off the mouth of the bay; but within, excepting in a very few places, the anchoring ground is good. The Dutch circumnavigator, the famous George Spilberg, with his fleet, consisting 188 of the Rising Sun, the New Moon, Venus, Hunter, Eolus, and Lucifer, having tried in vain to water at Valparaiso, put into Quintero, where he erected a half-moon battery, and sent his mariners ashore to protect his people while wooding and watering. He calls Quintero a port second to none for shelter, safety, fish, and water. After him, our countryman Cavendish, and I think some of the buccaneers, attempted to settle here; but the jealousy of the Spaniards soon expelled them.

Looking from the house, just where the eye rests upon the graceful sweep of the bay, backed by the cordillera, a beautiful fresh-water lake seems to repose within its grassy banks. Little hills rise from it in every direction partially covered with brushwood, partly shaded by groves of forest trees; and herds of cattle may be seen, morning and evening, making their accustomed migration from the wood to the open plain, from the plain to the wood.

The house of Quintero is as yet but just habitable; great part of it being unfinished. Like other houses in Chile, it is of one story only. The rooms are placed in detached groups, and promise to be very agreeable when finished. But who could think of the house when the master is present? Though not handsome, Lord Cochrane has an expression of countenance which induces you, when you have looked once, to look again and again. It is variable as the feelings that pass within; but the most general look is that of great benevolence. His conversation, when he does break his ordinary silence, is rich and varied; on subjects connected with his profession, or his pursuits, clear and animated; and if ever I met with genius, I should say it was pre-eminent in Lord Cochrane.

After dinner we walked to the garden, which lies in a beautiful sheltered spot, nearly a league from the house. At the entrance lay several agricultural implements, brought by His Lordship for the purpose of introducing modern improvements into Chile, the country of his adoption. The plough, the harrow, the spade, of modern Europe, all are new here, where no improvement has been suffered for centuries. Within the garden fence a space is devoted to raising larch, and oak, and beech: the larch I should think peculiarly adapted 189 to this climate. Vegetables unknown before here, such as carrot, turnip, and various kinds of pulse, have been added to the stores of Chile since his arrival. On returning to the house we looked over various drafts of small vessels fitted to be employed in a coasting trade; and the evening to me passed more pleasantly than any since I have been in Chile.

14th.—Soon after breakfast we all mounted our horses, and rode to the outer point of the Heradura, a peninsular promontory, where the cattle of the estate were to be collected in order to be counted. This sort of meeting is technically called a rodeo, and usually takes place in the summer, or rather autumn; when the young animals are sufficiently strong to be driven to the corral, or place of rendezvous, from the mountains and thickets where they were born. All the tenants of an estate assemble on such an occasion; and the young girls are not backward to dress themselves gaily, and appear at the corral. When the day of the rodeo is appointed, the men, being all mounted, divide; and each troop has a chief, under whose orders it advances, keeps close, separates, or falls back, according to the nature of the ground,—none is too rough, no hill too bold, no forest too thick to pierce. In order to defend their arms and legs from the bushes, they have curious leathern coverings, which fasten at the hip, and defend the knee and lower leg entirely; these are generally of seal-skins worked very curiously, and are tied fantastically with points. I have seen them as high-priced as fifteen dollars. The leathers for the arms are plainer. These men often stay several nights with their dogs on the hills to bring in the cattle; and when collected, all stranger beasts are set apart for their owners, and the estate cattle are marked. A rodeo is a scene of enjoyment: there one sees the Chilenos in their glory; riding, throwing the laça, breaking the young animals, whether horses or mules; and sometimes in their wantonness mounting the lordly bull himself. The rodeo of to-day is not of so festive a kind: it is merely to count the cattle on the estate, which ought to be 2000; but of which, it is feared, there has been a great neglect or waste, or loss, since 190 Lord Cochrane last sailed from hence. But a few hundreds were brought together to-day; however, ’tis but the first, and as it is not the regular season, probably there will be nearly the whole in a few days more. The head vaccaros, or cowherds, ought, generally speaking, to be born on the estate where their business lies. The haunts of the cattle are so wide apart, and the country so little inhabited, and so little travelled, that tracks and landmarks there are none, and only experience can guide the vaccaro at the different seasons to the different haunts of the beasts. His business is, besides attending at the rodeos, to bring them either to the plain or to the hill, to feed or to browse, according to the season; to portion them so as to secure free access to water; and to be watchful over the young, whether calves, young horses, or mules. A real vaccaro is seldom off his horse; and it may be doubted, if the human and the brute parts of the centaurs were ever more inseparable than the vaccaro and his steed. Each of these men has a certain number of cattle committed to his charge, for which he is accountable to the land steward.—One part of the ceremony of the rodeo is very agreeable to the men concerned. About 12 o’clock to-day, one of the peons was desired to laza a bullock; which was immediately killed and dressed for the public: the skin, however, belongs to the estate, and was instantly cut up into thongs to make lazas, halters, and all manner of useful things.

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Having spent the forenoon in riding to see the cattle, and planting fruit trees and strawberries in the garden, Mrs. Miers and I took leave after dinner, and returned to Concon by way of old Quintero House, most picturesquely situated near the lake, of which we had seen the seaward end in riding along the beach. Some of the scenery is very pretty, particularly about the house itself; but as we coasted the lake towards the ocean, the vegetation began to give way to sand, and we soon found ourselves going cautiously along a formidable slope, where to have slipt would have precipitated us into a very deep lake, and where the sand was of so loose a texture, that to slip seemed almost inevitable. At length we reached the sea-beach, and there found, that owing to the high wind and tide of to-day, the barrier of the lake was burst; and we had to search a long time for a ford. At length, however, we got over safely; but it was not until dark that we crossed the river at Concon. The sagacity of the horses, who, having once passed it, had no hesitation in choosing the ford, carried us across with safety, though there is something fearful in fording a deep and rapid river in the dark. The rushing of the waters, the sensation of struggling owing to the resistance they offer to the horses’ feet, the cry of a water-bird startled from its nest on the margin, might easily become the shriek of the water sprite, and his attempts to seize the traveller. Night, doubt, and fear, are powerful magicians, and have done more to people the world of fiction than half the romancers that ever lived.

15th.—On returning from a long and pleasant walk we met Captain F. S., and two other gentlemen, who had kindly ridden from Valparaiso to escort me home. I was really sorry to leave my kind hosts, who are so superior in knowledge and rational curiosity to any family I have seen for a long time, that I have enjoyed my visit more than I can say. We were three hours in reaching my house, for the road, in many places, does not admit of fast riding; but a fine sunset, a beautiful view, and agreeable companions, made up for the road and all its difficulties.

Valparaiso, August 17th.—I rode to the port to prepare for a 192 journey I mean to make to Santiago. Now the rainy season is over, I begin to be impatient to see the capital; and though the distance is only ninety miles, I must take beds as well as clothes, because the inns, with the exception of that at the first stage, Casablanca, are not provided with such things. Then I must have mules for my baggage; my own peon serves as a guide, and I mean to be part of three days on the road.

While in town, I met Captain Morgell, late of the Chile States brig Aranzaçu, which sunk as they were endeavouring to heave her down to repair. He left Guayaquil twenty-eight days ago; at which time the place was actually in possession of Bolivar, who was making common cause with San Martin, and had promised to send him 4000 men to aid in the final reduction of Peru. The people of Guayaquil, influenced by agents from Lima, had been behaving very ill to the Chile States vessels of war, and even threatened to fire on the Aranzaçu and Mercedes. But they have been kept quiet by Bolivar, who, though he hates, and is jealous of foreigners, knows, that in the present state of South America, it is impossible to do without them.

August 22d.—I began my journey to Santiago. My companion was the Honourable Frederick de Roos, midshipman belonging to His Majesty’s ship Alacrity; and I took with me my maid and my peon, with three baggage mules. We were escorted to the first post-house, about twelve miles from Valparaiso, by a party of friends, male and female, who had breakfasted with us. Instead of ascending the heights of the port by the broad carriage road which Chile owes to the father of the present Director, we followed the old rugged path, which, being shorter, is still used by the woodcutters’ mules, and sometimes by the common baggage cattle. This by-way is extremely rugged, being every where cut through by the winter rains; which, collecting on the flat grounds above, pour down the hill, furrowing deep channels in the soft red soil. Having once gained the height, an immense plain, called the Llanos de la Peñuela, extended itself before us, with hills beyond, over whose tops the snowy Andes appeared. Numerous streams, but none very large, cross this plain, 193 and herds of cattle were grazing on it; but it wants trees. At the end of the plain there is a second post-house; beyond which we entered a winding road, through a hilly ridge that separates the Llanos de la Peñuela from those of Casablanca. The pastoral and picturesque appearance of this pass reminded us of Devonshire,—the same grassy hills, and small shaded streams, and groups of cattle. Beyond the pass, a strait and perfectly flat road of about twelve miles leads to Casablanca. The plain on either side is nearly covered with espinella, or mimosa, whose fragrant sessile flowers just coming into blossom perfume the whole atmosphere; and the earth is almost carpeted with thrift, wood-anemone, œnothera white blue and yellow, star of Bethlehem, saxifrage, and an endless variety of mallows and minute geraniums. But it is yet too early for the most beautiful part of the Flora of Chile.

Casablanca is a mean little town, with one church, a governor, and several justices, and sends a member to the convention. It is famous for its butter and other products of the dairy; but derives its chief importance from being the only town on the road between the port and the city, and also the place at which the produce, whether for home consumption or exportation, from several neighbouring districts is collected, before it proceeds either to the city or to Valparaiso. One long street and a square constitute the town, but the greater part of the population of the parish resides in the farms in the neighbourhood. The square is not unlike a village green; the little church stands on one side, two inns and a few cottages and gardens occupy the other three; and, in the centre, an annual bull-fight takes place, on so diminutive a scale that the people of Santiago thought it a fit subject for ridicule, and, accordingly, to the no small annoyance of the natives, they brought out a farce on the stage called the “Bull-fight of Casablanca.” I do not know whether Casablanca has any other literary claim to notice excepting, perhaps, the chapter in Vancouver’s Voyages where he mentions the building of the houses precisely the same with that of Valparaiso, and there, I think, says that his party taught the people 194 of Chile for the first time the use of brooms to sweep their houses; a slander which is greatly resented by the Chilenos, who are remarkably neat in that particular, and who sweep their floors at least twice a day.

Captain the Honourable F. Spencer had kindly accompanied us thus far. I felt little fatigue from the ride, which is only thirty miles, but my poor maid was so fagged that I began to regret having brought her, as we had only accomplished one-third of our journey; however, a good night’s rest in beds so decent as to induce me not to unpack our own for this night, an excellent dinner, and still better breakfast, made us all so strong that there was no doubt of doing well when we set off next morning. The inn is kept by an English negro, who understands something of the comforts required by an Englishman, and really presents a very tolerable resting-place to a traveller.

23d.—Capt. Spencer went with us to the Cuesta de Zapata, a very steep mountain, up which the road winds in such a manner as to form sixteen terraces, one above the other, making a most singular appearance, seen in perspective from the long straight road which leads directly to it from Casablanca. The plain on this side of the town appears much richer than what we passed yesterday; amidst the thickets of espinella clear spaces appeared belonging to different dairy farms. The road-side is bordered with fine trees; maytenes, Chile willows, molle, and other evergreens, which became more numerous as we approached the Cuesta, and formed groves and woods in the deep glens into which it is broken. At the foot of the hill Capt. Spencer left us, to my great regret; for so agreeable and intelligent a companion, delightful every where, is doubly valuable at this distance from Europe.

I wonder that I have never heard the beauty of this road praised. Perhaps the merchants who use it frequently may be ruminating on profit and loss as they ride; and our English naval officers, who take a run to the capital for the sake of its gaieties, think too much of the end for which they go to attend to the road which leads thither. It reminds me of some of the very finest parts of the Appenines. The undulating valley, called the Caxon de Zapata, that opened on our 195 reaching the height, its woody glens, and the snowy mountains beyond, formed a very beautiful picture; the sky was serene, and the temperature delightful. In short, it might have been Italy, but that it wanted the tower and the temple to show that man inhabited it: but here all is too new; and one half expects to see a savage start from the nearest thicket, or to hear a panther roar from the hill. As soon as we could prevail on ourselves to leave the beautiful spot which commanded the view, we descended into the vale below, where we came to the post-house, and rested our horses; while doing so, the hostess obliged us to walk in and sit down at her family dinner. The house is a decent farm-house, and not by any means an inn, though the post is stationed there. Our repast was the usual stew, charquican, of the country, fresh and dried meat boiled together, with a variety of vegetables, and seasoned with aji or Chile pepper, the whole served up in a huge silver dish; and silver forks were distributed to each person, of whom, with ourselves, there were eight. Milk, with maize flour and brandy, completed the dinner. At length, ourselves and our horses being refreshed, we renewed our journey, our peon and mules having gone on before; and on leaving the Caxon, entered on the long deep vale on which both Curucavia and Bustamante stand. The first lies pretty widely scattered among its orchards at the foot of a mountain, and on the margin of a broad stream called the Estero of Curucavia, which issues out of a deep valley beyond, and the fording passage of which is exactly at the most picturesque spot. Bustamante is a hamlet, so named from the mayorasgo to whom it belongs; it lies under part of the ridge that forms the Cuesta de Prado, and has little remarkable to recommend it. The post-house is kept by a most civil and attentive old lady, who gave us very good mutton and excellent claret for dinner, and a clean room to sleep in: the floor is mud; and in different corners posts are stuck so as to form bed-places, on which we placed our matrasses, and slept extremely well, my maid, as before, being the most fatigued of the party, a proof that youth and health are not always the hardiest travelling companions;—she went to bed, while I remained up to write and prepare every thing for to-morrow.

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24th.—At seven o’clock we resumed our journey, in company with the peon Felipe; and about a mile from Bustamante, another peon with baggage joined us without ceremony, and performed the rest of the journey with us. As the new road over the Cuesta de Prado makes a circuit of several miles, Felipe wisely determined on leading us up the old mountain-path, which, but that we had been inured gradually to the sight of precipices, might have appeared tremendous. About half a mile from Bustamante we quitted O’Higgins’s road, and entered what is here called a monte or thicket⁕39 of beautiful underwood, and occasionally very large trees. The giant torch-thistle, starting up here and there among the lower shrubs, gave a picturesque peculiarity to the scene. About the centre of the monte, a large clear space presented a pleasing picture: it was the resting-place of a string of mules employed in carrying goods across the cordillera; the packages were placed in a circle, two bales together, and in the midst the masters and animals were reposing or eating, as pleased them; and at their little fire, close at hand, two or three of the men were employed in cooking. We soon began to ascend the sharp and rugged mountain, and could not help stopping every now and then to admire the beautiful scene behind us, and to look down into the leafy gulfs at our feet. Here and there the windings of the road were marked by strings of loaded mules on their way to the capital, and the long call of the muleteers resounding from the opposite cliffs harmonised well with the scene.

At length we reached the summit, and the Andes appeared in hoary majesty above a hundred ranges of inferior hills; but we had not yet come to the most beautiful spot; that lies about three furlongs from the junction of the old and the new roads of the Cuesta de Prado. Looking to one side, the long valleys we had passed stretched out into a distance doubled by the morning mist, through which the surrounding hills shone in every variety of tint; on the other hand, lies the beautiful plain of Santiago, through which the 197 road is discernible here and there. The high hills which surround the city, and the most magnificent range of mountains in the world, the cordillera of the Andes, now capped with snow, shooting into the heavens, with masses of cloud rolling in their dark valleys, presented to me a scene I had never beheld equalled. In the foreground there is a great deal of fine wood; and had there been water in sight, the landscape would have been perfect.

At the foot of the Cuesta, on the city side, we were happy to find an excellent breakfast of broiled mutton after our long ride; and we rested both ourselves and our horses for some time. The road from thence to the next stage, Pudaguel, is over a hot sandy plain, sprinkled with mimosas, and rendered hotter by the reflection of the sun from the arid surface. Pudaguel is a post on the banks of the lake of Pudaguel, which terminates at this point. It is vulgarly imagined that the river Mapocho, on which the city of Santiago is built, runs thus far, and here sinks through the gravel and sand to reappear by seven mouths on the other side of the mountain San Miguel, whence it flows into the vale of the Maypu, falling into that river near Melipilla; but the lake of Pudaguel does not communicate with the Mapocho, it is fed by the streams of Colinas and Lampa. The Mapocho, much diminished by the canals taken from it for irrigation, does disappear somewhere in the plain of Maypu; and the water of the beautiful fountain from San Miguel, being of the same sweet, light, and clear quality as that of the Mapocho, is called by that name until it joins the white and turbid Maypu. It is such accidents as these which the poetical Greeks delighted to adorn with the rich fabulous imagery which spreads a charm over all they deigned to sing of. How much more beautiful is the scenery round the banks of Pudaguel, than the dirty washing-place that marks the fountain of Arethusa in Syracuse! And yet, when I stood there actually hearing and seeing vulgar Sicilians, surrounded by mean squalid houses and with nothing more sacred than a broken plaster image of the Virgin, my imagination, longing from youth to see where “Divine Alceus did by secret sluice steal under-ground to meet his Arethuse,” soon encrusted the 198 rock with marble, and restored the palaces, and the statues, and the luxury of that fountain which once deserved the praise or the reproach of being the most luxurious spot of a luxurious city. Here Pudaguel sinks in lonely beauty unsung, and therefore unhonoured.

The view from the pass of Pudaguel is most beautiful. Looking across the river, whose steep banks are adorned with large trees, the plain of Santiago stretches to the mountains, at whose foot the city with its spires of dazzling whiteness extends, and distinguishes this from the other fine views in Chile, in which the want of human habitation throws a melancholy over the face of nature.

Three miles beyond Pudaguel, we met Don Jose Antonio de Cotapos, whose family had kindly invited me to stay in their house while I was at Santiago; and though I had declined it, fancying I should be more at liberty in an English inn, my intentions were overruled, when I was met a few miles farther on by M. Prevost, who told me the ladies would be hurt if I did not go to their house, at any rate in the first instance. This was hardly settled, before I saw two carriages with Madame de Cotapos and three of her remarkably pretty daughters, who had come to meet me and carry me into the city. The latter I declined, not liking, dusty as I was, to enter their carriage. I therefore rode on, and was received most kindly by Doña Mercedita, a fourth daughter, whose grace and politeness equals her beauty. After a little rest, and having refreshed myself by dressing, I was called to dinner; where I found all the family assembled, and several other gentlemen, who were invited to meet me, and do honour to the feast of reception. The dinner was larger than would be thought consistent with good taste; but every thing was well dressed, though with a good deal of oil and garlic. Fish came among the last things. All the dishes were carved on the table, and it is difficult to resist the pressing invitations of every moment to eat of every thing. The greatest kindness is shown by taking things from your own plate and putting it on that of your friend; and no scruple is made of helping any dish before you with the spoon or knife you have been eating with, or even tasting or eating from the general dish without the 199 intervention of a plate. In the intervals between the courses, bread and butter and olives were presented.

Judging from what I saw to-day, I should say that the Chilenos are great eaters, especially of sweet things; but that they drink very little.

After dinner we took coffee; and, as it was late, every thing passed as in an English house, except the retiring of most of the family to prayers at the Ave Maria. In the evening, a few friends and relations of the family arrived, and the young people amused themselves with music and dancing. The elder ones conversed over a chafing-dish, and had a thick coverlet spread over it and their knees, which answers the double purpose of confining the heat to the legs, and preventing the fumes of the charcoal from making the head ache. It is but lately that the ladies of Chile have learned to sit on chairs, instead of squatting on the estradas. Now, in lieu of the estrada, there are usually long carpets placed on each side of the room, with two rows of chairs as close together as the knees of the opposite parties will permit, so that the feet of both meet on the carpet. The graver people place themselves with their backs to the wall, the young ladies opposite; and as the young men drop in to join the tertulla, or evening meeting, they place themselves behind the ladies; and all conversation, general or particular, is carried on without ceremony in half whispers.

When a sufficient number of persons is collected the dancing begins, always with minuets; which, however, are little resembling the grave and stately dance we have seen in Europe. Grave, indeed it is, but it is slovenly; no air, no polish, nothing in which the famous Captain Nash of Bath would recognise the graceful movements of the rooms, where he presided so long and so well. The minuets are followed by allemandes, quadrilles, and Spanish dances. The latter are exceedingly graceful; and, danced as I have seen them here, are like the poetical dances of ancient sculpture and modern painting; but then, the waltz never brought youth, and mirth, and beauty, into such close contact with a partner. However, they are used to it, and I was a fool to feel troubled at the sight. After all the dancing was 200 over, and the friends had retired, the gates were shut carefully, the family went to their principal meal—a hot supper; and, as I never eat at night, I retired to my room highly pleased with the gentle and kind manners, and hospitable frankness of my new friends, and too tired to think of any thing but sleep. It was so long since I had heard a watchman that I could scarcely believe my ears, when the sound of “Ave Maria purissima las onzes de noche y sereno” reached me as I was undressing, and awakened many a remembrance associated with

⁕39 The application of the word Monte arose, it seems, in the plains of Buenos Ayres, which are so flat, that wherever there is a grove, the distant effect is in truth that of a hill.

25th.—My first object this morning was to examine the disposition of the different apartments of the house I am in; and first I went to the gate by which I entered, and looked along the wall on either hand in vain for a window looking to the street. The house, like all those to which my eye reached, presented a low white wall with an enormous projecting tiled roof: in the centre a great portal with folding gates, and by it a little tower called the Alto, with windows and a balcony at the top, where I have my apartment; and under it, close by the gate, is the porter’s lodge. This portal admits one into a great paved quadrangle, into which various apartments open: those on either hand appeared to be store-rooms: opposite, are the sala or drawing-room, the principal bed-room, which is also a public sitting room, and one or two smaller public rooms; behind this band of building there is a second quadrangle laid out in flower-plots, shaded with fruit trees, and of which a pleasant veranda makes part. Here the young people of the family often sit, and either receive visits or pursue their domestic occupations. Round this court or pateo, the private apartments of the family are arranged; and behind them there is a smaller court, where the kitchen, offices, and servants’ apartments are placed, and through which, as in most houses in Santiago, a plentiful stream of water is always running.

The disposition of the houses, though pleasant enough to the inhabitants, is ugly without, and gives a mean, dull air to the streets, 201 which are wide and well paved, having a footpath flagged with slabs of granite and porphyry; and through most of them a small stream is constantly running, which, with a little more attention from the police, might make it the cleanest city in the world: it is not very dirty; and when I recollect Rio Janeiro and Bahia, I am ready to call it absolutely clean.

The house of Cotapos is handsomely, not elegantly furnished. Good mirrors, handsome carpets, a piano by Broadwood, and a reasonable collection of chairs, tables, and beds, not just of the forms of modern Paris or London, but such, I dare say, as were fashionable there little more than a century ago, look exceedingly well on this side of the Horn. It is only the dining-room that I feel disposed to quarrel with: it is the darkest, dullest, and meanest apartment in the house. The table is stuck in one corner; so that one end and one side only allow room for a row of high chairs between them and the wall; therefore any thing like the regular attendance of servants is precluded. One would almost think that it was arranged for the purpose of eating in secret; and one is led to think, especially when the great gates close at night before the principal meal is presented, of the Moors and the Israelites of the Spanish peninsula, jealously hiding themselves from the eyes of their Gothic tyrants.

My breakfast was served in my own room according to my own fashion, with tea, eggs, and bread and butter. The family eat nothing at this time of day; but some take a cup of chocolate, others a little broth, and most a matee. The ladies all visited me on their way to mass; and on this occasion they had left off their usual French style of dress, and were in black, with the Mantilla and all that makes a pretty Spaniard or Chilena, ten times prettier.

About noon, M. de la Salle, one of the Supreme Director’s Aides de Camp called, with a polite compliment from His Excellency, welcoming me to Santiago. By this gentleman I sent my letters of introduction to Doña Rosa O’Higgins; and it was agreed that I should visit her to-morrow evening, as she goes to the theatre to-night. 202 Soon after dinner to-day, Mr. de Roos and I accompanied Don Antonio de Cotapos and two of his sisters to the plain on the southwest side of the town, to see the Chinganas, or amusements of the common people. On every feast-day they assemble at this place, and seem to enjoy themselves very much in lounging, eating sweet puffs fried on the spot in oil, and drinking various liquors, but especially chicha, while they listen to a not disagreeable music played on the harp, guitar, tambourine, and triangle, accompanied by women’s voices, singing of love and patriotism. The musicians are placed in waggons covered with reeds, or regularly thatched, where they sit playing to draw custom to little tables, placed around with cakes, liquors, flowers, which those attracted by the songs buy for themselves or the lasses they wish to treat. Some of the flowers, such as carnations and ranunculuses, are extravagantly dear: half a dollar is frequently asked for a single one, and a yellow ranunculus, with petals tipped with crimson and a green centre, is worth at least a dollar, in order to make a present of. Men, women, and children, are passionately fond of the Chinganas. The whole plain is covered with parties on foot, on horseback, in caleches, and even in carts; and, although for the fashionables, the Almeida is most in vogue, yet there is no want of genteel company at the Chinganas⁕40: every body seemed equally happy and equally orderly. In so great a crowd in England, there would surely have been a ring or two for a fight; but nothing of the kind occurred here, although there was a good deal of gambling and some drinking. In the evening I joined the family Tertulla, where the usual music and dancing and gossip went on; and I found that even in Chile the beauty and dress of one young lady is criticised by another just as with us. And now I think of it, I am sure I never saw so many very pretty women in one day, as I beheld to day: I am not sure that any were of transcendant beauty, but I am quite sure I did not see one plain. They are generally of the middle size, well made, and walk well, with fine hair and beautiful eyes, as many 203 blue as black, good teeth, and as for their complexion,—the red and white. “Nature’s own pure and cunning hand” never laid on finer,—but, alas! “liberal not lavish is kind nature’s hand;” and these pretty creatures have generally harsh rough voices, and about the throats of some there is that fulness that denotes that goîtres are not uncommon.

⁕40 See Frezier.

26th.—This morning, on looking out soon after day-break, I saw the provisions coming into town for the market. The beef cut in quarters, the mutton in halves, was mounted on horseback before a man or boy, who, in his poncho, sat as near the tail of the horse as possible. Fowls in large grated chests of hide came slung on mules. Eggs, butter, milk, cheese, and vegetables, all rode, no Chileno condescending to walk, especially with a burden, unless in case of dire necessity; and as the strings of beasts so laden came along one way, I saw women enveloped in their mantos, and carrying their alfombras and missals, going to mass another.

The cries in the streets are nearly as unintelligible as those in London, and, with the exception of Sweep and Old Clothes, concern the same articles. Judge Prevost came in soon after breakfast and settled my mode of paying my respects to Doña Rosa O’Higgins in the evening. It appears that to walk even to a next-door neighbour on occasions of ceremony is so undignified, that I must not think of it, therefore I go in a chaise belonging to the family where I live, and two of the ladies will accompany me. This last proposal I own startled me. They are of one of the best families here; but a daughter was married to a Carrera: they were all partizans of Carrera, and more than one have been implicated in conspiracies against the present government: nay, it is said against the Director’s life; and I know that no intercourse, of a friendly nature, notwithstanding the good-natured wishes of Mr. Prevost, has as yet taken place between the palace and the house of Catapos. If I am the means of spreading peace, so much the better, though I perhaps would rather know openly the use to be made of me.

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I walked out to see the Plaza: one side is occupied by the palace which contains the residence of the director, the courts of justice, and the public prison. The building is from its size extremely handsome, but it is as yet irregular, because when the directorial palace was added money was scarce, yet all the lower story corresponds with the Doric order of the rest, and may be raised upon whenever the government is rich enough. The west side of the square is occupied by the unfinished cathedral, also Doric, the bishop’s palace, and a few inferior buildings: the south side has an arcade in front of private houses, the lower stories of which are shops, and under the arcade are booths something in the style of the bazars of modern London. On moonlight nights this arcade is exceedingly gay. It is the fashion then for ladies to go shopping on foot; and as every booth has its light, the scene is extremely pretty; the fourth side is filled up by mean houses, one of the best of which is the English inn. We passed several other public buildings which are, generally speaking, handsome, the Doric order being almost universally adopted; yet the streets have a mean air, owing to the dead walls of the private houses.

After dinner, Mr. de Roos and I walked to the Tacama and the Almeida. The Tacama is a strong mound of masonry built to defend the city from the floods of the Mapocho, which, though now a mere rivulet stealing its way in a narrow channel in the midst of a wide bed of pebbles, is twice a year an ungovernable flood. The winter rains and the melting of the snows being the seasons when it rolls its mighty flood across the plain, and but for the Tacama would overflow the greater part of the city. The Almeida is within the Tacama: it is a charming walk, bordered with rows of willow trees, and commanding delightful views. From thence we followed a narrow street to the fort on the little rock of Santa Lucia, which should be the citadel of Santiago. It rises in the midst of it, or nearly so, and commands it, and there are now in fact two little batteries on its opposite extremities. As we went we could not but admire the huge blocks of granite that nature seems to have disposed 205 here as in sport; now forming caverns and now overhanging the road; and reminding us of the loosened mountains with which the ancient Caciques used to overwhelm their invaders. From Santa Lucia, we discovered the whole plain of Santiago to the Cuesta de Prado, the plain of Maypu stretching even to the horizon, the snowy Cordillera, and beneath our feet the city, its gardens, churches, and its magnificent bridge all lit up by the rays of the setting sun, which on the city, the plains, and the Prado produced such effects as poets and painters have described. But what pen or pencil can impart a thousandth part of the sublime beauty of sunset on the Andes? I gazed on it

What had St. Isidore’s bell to do, to awaken one from such contemplation to look on his petty church under a huge dark cloud, whence issued a long and solemn procession of monks and priests performing the first of a nine days’ prayer to their patron Isidore, and jointly with Saint James, patron of the city, for rain?

I wish that superstition had not gone farther than assigning a guardian to each country, city, and individual; there is something so soothing in the feeling that a superior being is watching over us, and ready to intercede for us with the great Judge of all. The light-hearted Athenian had his Minerva, the sturdy Roman his Jupiter the greatest and the best, England even yet keeps her George, and why not St. Iago her James, the mirror of knighthood, and Isidore, the husbandman? I entered into conversation with a woman on the rock, who told me that dry weather is considered as unwholesome here, and that people’s bodies dried up like the earth without rain, therefore there was much need of the interference of the saints to keep sickness as well as dearth from the city. She said also that fever and pains in the throat came from the dry weather. If this is not prejudice, it is curious.

We came home to dress for the palace, where we went accompanied by Judge Prevost, Madame Cotapos and her second daughter, 206 Mariquita, a young woman more cultivated than is usual here. The ladies both apologised for appearing in cotton stockings and coarse black shoes, by saying that it was in consequence of a vow made during a severe illness of the old gentleman, Don Jose Miguel Cotapos, by which they had obliged themselves to wear such stockings and shoes a whole year, if his life was granted to their prayers. If I smiled at the superstition of this, the affection whence it proceeded was too respectable to permit me to laugh; and I was well aware of the extent of the merit of the vow, as there is nothing in which a lady of Chile is so delicate as the choice of her shoes. Madame Cotapos whispered to me that the torment hers had occasioned was such that she had been obliged to slip a little cotton wool into them to save her feet. Luckily she did not understand me, as I could not help muttering Peter Pindar’s words, “I took the liberty to boil my peas.” Mariquita performs her vow, however, without reservation of any kind. On arriving at the palace, we walked in with less bustle and attendance than I have seen in most private houses: the rooms are handsomely but plainly furnished; English cast-iron grates; Scotch carpets; some French china, and time-pieces, little or nothing that looked Spanish, still less Chileno. The Director’s mother Doña Isabella, and his sister Doña Rosa, received us not only politely but kindly. The Director’s reception was exceedingly flattering both to me and my young friend De Roos. His Excellency had passed several years in England, great part of which time he spent at an academy at Richmond in Surrey. He immediately asked me if I had ever been there, enquired after my uncle Mr., now Sir David Dundas, and several other persons of my acquaintance, by name, and asked very particularly about his old masters in music and other arts. I was very much pleased with the kindliness of nature shown in these recollections, and still more so when I saw several wild-looking little girls come into the room, and run up to him, and cling about his knees, and found they were little orphan Indians rescued from slaughter on the field of battle. It appears that the Indians, when they make their inroads on the reclaimed grounds, bring their wives and families with them; and should a 207 battle take place and become desperate, the women usually take part in it. Should they lose it, it is not uncommon for the men to put to death their wives and children to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy, and indeed till now it was only anticipating, by a few minutes, the fate of these wretched creatures; for quarter was neither given nor taken on either side, the Indians in the Spanish ranks continuing their own war customs in spite of their partial civilisation. The Director now gives a reward for all persons, especially women and children, saved on these occasions. The children are to be educated and employed hereafter as mediators between their nations and Chile, and, to this end, care is taken that they should not forget their native tongue. The Director was kind enough to talk to them in the Araucanian tongue, that I might hear the language, which is soft and sweet; perhaps it owed something to the young voices of the children. One of them pleased me especially: she is a little Maria, the daughter of a Cacique, who, with his wife and all the elder part of his family, was killed in a late battle. Doña Rosa takes a particular charge of the little female prisoners, and acts the part of a kind mother to them. I was charmed with the humane and generous manner in which she spoke of them. As to Doña Isabella, she appears to live on her son’s fame and greatness, and looks at him with the eyes of maternal love, and gathers every compliment to him with eagerness. He is modest and simple, and plain in his manners, arrogating nothing to himself; or, if he has done much, ascribing it to the influence of that love of country which, as he says, may inspire great feelings into an ordinary man. He conversed very freely about the state of Chile, and told me he doubted not but that I must be surprised at the backwardness of the country in many things, and particularly mentioned the want of religious toleration, or, rather, the very small measure of it which, considering the general state of things, he had yet been able to grant, without disturbing the public tranquillity; and he seemed a little inclined to censure those Protestants who wished prematurely to force upon him the building a chapel, and the public institution of Protestant 208 worship; forgetting how very short a time it is since even private liberty of conscience and a consecrated burial-place had been allowed in a country which, within twelve years, had been subject to the Inquisition at Lima. He spoke a good deal also of the necessity of public education, and told me of the Lancasterian and other schools lately established here, and in other towns in Chile, which are certainly numerous in proportion to the population.

Several other persons now joined the party, among whom was a Colonel Cruz; whom the Director particularly introduced as the intended new governor of Talcahuana, and recommended me to his attention during the journey I mean to make shortly to the southward. The military men who came in afterwards were some of them Frenchmen, but they did not appear to me to be of the most polished of their countrymen: they sat in dead silence, while some of the members of the cabildo, i.e. the municipal chamber of Santiago, discussed various questions of policy connected with the projected constitution; till Doña Rosa, finding the conversation likely to become exclusively political, proposed to Doña Mariquita to play some French music, which she instantly did, without book, extremely well, having a fine ear and an excellent finger; and I had time to look at the persons round me. The Director was dressed, as I believe he always is, in his general’s uniform; he is short and fat, yet very active: his blue eyes, light hair, and ruddy and rather coarse complexion, do not bely his Irish extraction; while his very small and short hands and feet belong to his Araucanian pedigree. Doña Isabella is young-looking for her years, and very handsome, though small. Her daughter is like the Director, on a larger scale. She was dressed in a scarlet satin spencer and white skirt, a sort of dress much worn here. The Chileno men are an uglier coarser race, as far as I have seen, than the women, who are beautiful, and, what is more, lady-like: they have a natural easy politeness, and a caressing manner that is delightful; but then some of their habits are disagreeable; for instance, a handsome fat lady, who came all in blue satin to the palace to-night, had a spitting-box brought and set before her, into which she spat continually, and 209 so dexterously, as to show she was well accustomed to the manœuvre. However, the young ladies, and all who would be thought so, are leaving off these ugly habits fast.

At about ten o’clock we left the palace, and found our young people at home still engaged in their minuets. I sat with them a short time, and then came to my alto to write the journal of this my second day in Santiago, with which I am very well pleased.

27th.—Visited Doña Mercedes de Solar, whose father, Juan Henriques Rosalis, was one of the members of the first junta of the revolutionary government in 1810. She is a very pretty, and very polished woman; seems well acquainted with French authors, and speaks French extremely well. I found her sitting in the bedroom, which, as I have noticed, is often used as a drawing-room; she was surrounded by some lovely children, and had with her some pretty nieces; books and needlework were on a small French table by her, and before her was a large chafingdish of well-burnt charcoal. The dish was of massy silver, beautifully embossed, set in a frame of curiously inlaid wood; and there was a wrought silver spoon to stir the coals with. I have seen several of the same kind before; but it seemed here in keeping with the rest of the room, and the persons. The stately French bed, the open piano, the guitar, the ormoulu time-piece, the ladies, the children, the books, the work, and the flowers in French porcelain, with the rich Chilian brassiere, into which perfume is now and then cast, made a charming picture, which, lighted as it was from a high window behind me, I heartily wished in proper hands to copy. I would not have changed the purple pelisse of the mother, setting off her white and rather full throat, or even the pale looks of little Vicente, for all the inventions of all the painters that ever tricked out interiors with fullest effect. I have a particular interest in Vicente, besides his being a clever child. He came with me in the Doris from Rio, whither he had gone in the Owen Glendower. He suffered from cold in coming round the Horn, and I had him with me in the cabin as much as circumstances would permit. One day we were speaking of the 210 newly discovered South Shetland⁕41, and of the wreck of the Spanish line-of-battle ship which had been found there,—a ship which had been bound to Chile with troops, but had never been heard of. The boy was listening eagerly, and then looked at me,—“Mirad la Fortuna de Chile,” said he; “when the tyrants send ships to oppress her, God sends them to wreck on desert coasts.” I trust, the stuff he is made of will not be spoiled by the constant intercourse he has with the French who frequent his father’s house; Don Felipe de Solar being general agent for all French vessels arriving in Chile. This is, I believe, an illiberal feeling, but I cannot help it; there are some things, which, like faith, do not depend upon the will, and this is one of them. Perhaps I envied the French authors their place on Madame Solar’s table, and would have liked to have seen the Rape of the Lock there, rather than the Lutrin.

In the evening we rode to the quinta of the Canonico Erreda by the Almeida, and so to the north-east. The house is spacious and pleasant; the garden delicious: little water-courses, led in quaintly-figured canals among the flower-beds, maintain a never failing succession of all the sweetest and rarest flowers,—the violet and wallflower, the carnation and ranunculus; and there are delicious oranges, of which we ate no small number; and limes, and a large peach-orchard, and a vineyard, and cows, and a dairy, and all manner of rural wealth and comfort.

From the Canonico’s we rode by the olive grove with the thickest shade of olive trees on one hand, and on the other long orchards of cherry, peach, apple, and pear, all now in blossom; and crossing two or three enclosures at each gate of which we were sure to meet some one to open it, and as surely some one to beg,—a practice nobody seems ashamed of here,—we reached the Cañada, formerly only a marshy suburb of the town; but O’Higgins is causing it to be drained, and cleared, and planted with trees, so that it will soon exceed the Almeida in beauty, as it does in extent. The water, 211 instead of overflowing, is now conveyed in a regular canal, with shrubs on each side, and gravel walks for foot passengers, and wider roads for carriages and horses; about one third of this is done, and the rest is in progress.

⁕41 New South Shetland should rather be called a re-discovery: Raleigh was there, and hanged some mutineers on the coast.

28th.—St. Austin’s Day. I am no favourite with the saint, for he has been thwarting me all day long. But all things in order. Early in the morning I heard a bell ringing exactly like that which on winter evenings in London announces the approach of “muffins;” I looked out, and saw first, a boy ringing the said bell, then another with a bundle of candles: all the people in the streets pulled off their hats, and stood as if doing homage. Then came a dark blue caleche, with glories and holy ghosts painted on it, and a man within dressed in white satin, embroidered with silver and coloured silk. In front sat a man with a gilt lanthorn; behind, people with umbrellas. I asked what it was, and was told it was the Padre Eterno. The expression sounds indecent to a protestant; it is holy to a Spaniard, who must think that such indeed is the Host on its way to a dying person;—such in fact was the procession I saw. This was the only thing that happened before the disappointments occasioned by St. Austin began. The first of these occurred when I went with Mr. de Roos to see the Lancasterian school; we found the boys all gone to Mass in honour of St. Austin, and the school shut: we proceeded to the national printing-office; the doors were shut, and the printers at Mass. Thence we went to the chamber of the Consulada, hoping to be present at a session of the convention: but the members were at Mass. Then despairing of seeing any public place or people, I thought I would draw; so repaired to the Plaça, where I had been promised a balcony to sketch from: but the master had gone to Mass, and taken the keys in his pocket; so I went home, resolving to do better in the afternoon, and began to sketch the inner pateo of the house: but, being a holiday, numerous visitors came, and little was done.

After dinner I took fresh courage, and set off with Madame Cotapos and her daughters to visit the nunnery of St. Austin: but it had 212 been the festival of their saint; and what with that and the vigil, the lady abbess and her nuns were so fatigued, having been singing all day and part of the night, that they could not receive us. The note containing this disagreeable news reached us when we were all dressed and ready for walking; so we went to visit the ladies Godoy, in whose house Judge Prevost lives. These ladies are near relations of Madame Cotapos, and are extremely lively and agreeable. We sat chatting in the inner pateo or garden, which looks like every thing romancers and travellers tell us is Moorish: and had matee brought to us by some pretty little Indian girls, very nicely dressed; and then we adjourned to the house, which has lately assumed in its fire-places, and other comforts, a very European air. We had a little music here, and then walked home; my friends as usual without hats or veils, and in their satin shoes.

In the intervals between the disappointments occasioned by St. Austin, I went into the large and handsome church formerly belonging to the Jesuits, where the troops were assembled to hear Mass; and their military music joined to the solemn organ had a fine effect. I also went into the cathedral, having put on a mantilla for the purpose, as bonnets are not allowed to appear in church. The interior of the building is very handsome, though unfinished. There is some rich plate, particularly a fine chased altar-piece.

29th of August, 1822.—A party, consisting of Judge Prevost, who is always ready to promote my wish of seeing every thing curious in Chile, Mr. de Roos, Doña Mariquita Cotapos, Don Jose Antonio Cotapos, and some young Englishmen, rode out to see the Salta de Agua, the only remaining work of the ancient Caciques in the neighbourhood. We crossed the handsome stone bridge built by Ambrose O’Higgins over the Mapocho; and, after passing through the suburb La Chimba⁕42, we proceeded to the powder-mills, now in a ruined state. They were wrought by water; the machinery clumsy and dangerous, the mixture being pounded in stone mortars instead of ground. These works, which had cost the government of Old Spain a prodigious 213 sum of money, were destroyed by the Carreras, in the retreat before Osorio, in 1814, and have never been re-established, although much wanted. We found part of the ground about the mills occupied by Mr. Goldsegg, an ingenious artist, formerly employed in Woolwich warren, but who came here with his wife and family, after the peace, in order to make rockets for the expedition against Callao. By some fatality his rockets failed, and he has been living on here in hopes of employment. But the mercantile speculations of the minister Rodriguez have diverted the funds that should repair public works and repay public artificers into such very different channels, that I fear poor Goldsegg, with all his merit, will add one to the many victims of disappointed hope.

From the powder-mills the road continues along a low rich plain, watered by numerous artificial streams, and surrounded by hills; at the foot of one of the steepest of these, we beheld the water of the Salta (Leap) leaping from cliff to cliff, from the summit, sometimes concealed by tufted wood, and sometimes shining in the midday sun. Those who have seen the Cascatelle of Tivoli, have seen the only thing I remember at all to be compared to this; but there is no villa of Mecænas to crown the hill, no Sybil’s temple to give the charm of classic poetry to the scene. I was a few minutes apart from my companions; and, as a dense cloud rolled from the Andes across the sky, I could, in the spirit of Ossian, have believed, that the soul of some old Cacique had flitted by; and, if he regretted that his name and nation were no longer supreme here, was not ungratified at the sight of the smiling cultivated plain his labours had tended to render fruitful; nor, it may be, of me, as one of the white children of the East, whence freedom to the sons of the Indians was once more to arise. However that may be, the cloud passed, and my good horse began to make way up one of the steepest pieces of road any four-footed thing, except a goat, ever thought of climbing; so that I began to think I had a good chance of being drowned in one of the water-courses, after having crossed the ocean. However, a short time brought both horse and rider safe to the top of the cliff, about two hundred and fifty feet or thereabouts, more rather than less, of actual 214 height above the knoll where we first saw the Salta, and where there is a little village. Here I dismounted, and by the assistance of two of my friends, stepped across one of the water-channels to have a perfect view of the work, and of the fall below. We had not descended, perceptibly, since we left Santiago; yet, though we had climbed the steep cliff of the fall, we found ourselves still on the plain of the city; having between it and us a very high hill, whose base is uneven, so that the north side rests below the fall, and the south side above it. On either side, the country appears to the eye perfectly level. The river Mapocho flows from the Andes through the upper plain; the lower one is without a natural stream, but the land is evidently better than that above. The Caciques observing this, cut channels through the granite rock, from the Mapocho to the edge of the precipice, and made use of the natural fall of the ground to throw a considerable stream from the river into the vale below: this is divided into numerous channels, as required; and the land so watered is some of the most productive in the neighbourhood of the city. The Indian chiefs, instead of one large channel, have dug three smaller ones, directing them to the centre of the vale, and to the sides of the hills on either hand, so as to fertilise the whole district; an advantage as great to the admirer of picturesque beauty as to the cultivator. To the beautiful artificial waterfalls praised by travellers, I must add this, which is quite as rich in natural beauty as Tivoli; and as singular, as a work of early art, as the channel by which the Velinus falls into the Nar. I appreciate the work of the Caciques the better for having seen that of the Roman consul; and only regret that I am not a poet to immortalise these beautiful waters which precipitate themselves into the vale below, and reappear in sparkling rills to fertilise the plain beyond. We left the fall with regret to return to the city, or rather to go to it by a very different road. We proceeded over a plain completely covered with shingle, and only here and there a clump of some low sweet shrubs, of which the horses are very fond. This is the winter channel of the Mapocho, which covers the land far and near with its waters, and rolls these pebbles over it.

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Half way between the Salta and the city, we stopped at a quinta belonging to the brother of Madame Cotapos, or, as I ought properly to call her, Doña Mercedes de Cotapos. This gentleman, Don Henriquez Lastra, the ex-director of Chile, is at present entirely removed from public life, and devotes himself to the cultivation of his farm or hacienda, and to making various experiments for the improvement of the wines of the country. He has succeeded in making a wine little if at all inferior to champaign; and his ordinary wine, in which he has pursued the Madeira method, is like the best vino tinto of Teneriffe. In general the wines here are sweet and heavy. His fields appear to me to be in excellent order; and all about the farm looks more like European farming than any thing I had seen in this country. Don Henriquez was not at home when we arrived, but we were most kindly welcomed by his lady, who is of the family of Izquierda de Xara Quemada. She was in the midst of her eight fine children, instructing some, and working for others. The house is small, but new building is going on sufficient to double its size; and the principal rooms are to be built with chimneys, and English grates are to supersede brasseros: these steps towards improvement are great in this country, which has hitherto remained, of all others, the most backward, partly from political, partly from moral and physical causes peculiar to itself. The ex-director soon came in: he appeared to be a plain sensible man, of simple but courteous manners; and, very soon, in his conversation I discerned a polish that here must have been acquired from books, and a strength that the circumstances of an active life engaged in such a revolution as has taken place may well have produced. Yet I should think him a slow man, and, perhaps, not gifted with that readiness and presence of mind calculated to meet extraordinary occurrences which are absolutely necessary for public men at such a time. The present study of Don Henriquez is small, and might excite a smile in a London or Parisian statesman, accustomed to all the luxuries of labour; but the new house will give room to a larger library, directed by the same good sense that has hitherto preferred useful to ornamental learning.

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The luncheon at Don Henriquez’s was all the produce of the farm. Sausages as good as those of Bologna; bread of his own wheat, as white as that made of the Sicilian grain; butter that the dairies of England might have been proud of; and of the wines I have spoken already. I was delighted with the visit in every way; the hospitality of the house, and the improvements going on, which must all tend to the good of the country.

Soon after we reached home, I received a magnificent present of fruit and flowers from Doña Rosa O’Higgins. The fruit was watermelons, lucumas, oranges, and sweet limes, no others being as yet in season; and the flowers, of all the finest and rarest. They were arranged on trays, covered with embroidered napkins, and borne on the heads of servants in the full dress of the palace livery; one out of livery entering first to pay me a compliment from the lady. At night the young ladies Cotapos, and their brother, Don Jose Antonio, danced for me the cuando, a national dance. It is performed by two persons, and begins slowly like a minuet; it then quickens according to the music and the song, which represent a sort of loving quarrel and final agreement; the skill of the dancer consisting in holding his body steady, beating the ground with inconceivable quickness with his feet in a measure called zapatear (to shoe). Doña Mariquita played and sung the song which she herself has adapted to the music, the ordinary verses being love verses, which she does not choose to sing, being proper for the gentleman to sing to his partner. But there are several songs to the cuando; and in the country where Sancho Pança’s language is spoken, it is to be supposed that some are burlesque.⁕43

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30th.—Santa Rosa’s day, which is kept as a great festival here: first, because Santa Rosa is a South American saint; and secondly, because it is the day of His Excellency the Director’s sister. Every body of course called at the palace to leave cards of compliment. I am in no state of spirits for public amusements; but in a new country they are always to be observed, as they indicate more or less surely the genius of the people: I therefore determined to take a box at the theatre to-night; and accordingly, after taking matee with the ladies Izquierda, I went with my friends to the play at Santiago. On one side of the square, between the palace of the Consulado and the Jesuits’ church, a gate in a low wall admitted us to a square, in which there is a building that reminded me of a provincial temporary theatre; but the earthquakes of Chile apologise for any external meanness of building but too satisfactorily: the interior is far from contemptible; I have seen much worse in Paris. The stage is deep, the scenery very good, but the proscenium mean. On the green curtain, there is wrought in letters of gold—

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The Director’s box is on the right hand of the stage, it is handsomely fitted up with silk of the national colours, blue, red, and white, bordered with gold fringe. Opposite is the box of the Cabildo, a little less handsome, but decorated with the same colours. The theatre is a very favourite amusement here, and most of the boxes are taken by the year, so that it was by favour only that I obtained one to-night: the theatre was quite full, and the general beauty of the women was particularly conspicuous on the occasion. Shortly after we were seated, the Director and his family, including the little Indian girls, came in. I am so accustomed to see respect paid to the actual sovereign of a country, that I instantly rose and courtesied, and was quite abashed to see that I was the only person in the house who did so: however, it passed for a particular compliment, and was particularly returned. The national hymn was then called for and sung, and played as is usual before the beginning of the piece. One party of ladies became conspicuous, by sitting down, turning their backs, and talking loud during the playing of the hymn,—a piece of gross and imprudent impertinence, that would have been tolerated no where but under the good-natured eye of the Director O’Higgins.⁕44 219 The actors have one good quality,—they speak very plainly; but they are very tame, and rather seem to be repeating a lesson, than either speaking or declaiming: the piece may be to blame for this. It was “King Ninus the Second;” but I cannot recollect any king of that name who ever had a tragical story of the kind belonging to him: and I have no books here, and no literary ladies, or even gentlemen, so I must rest in ignorance; though, if I remember right, there is something like the history of Zenobia in the plot: however, there is a great deal of love and murder in it.

The farce was the “Madmen of Seville.” The graciosa of the piece a beggar, has by some accident got into the bedlam of the city, and the amusement consists in the different tricks played to him by the patients of the hospital, who each insist on taking him as a companion. I was half sorry not to be able to join in the excessive mirth apparently caused by the piece, but I was rather glad when it was over: we all enjoyed some ices very much, which were brought into the box; and we were not the only persons who regaled themselves in the same manner, though I think sweetmeats and wine seemed to be the favourite refreshments. The gallery is appropriated to the soldiers, who enter gratis.

Saturday, August 31st.—Having ascertained that there was no saint in the way to prevent us, Mr. De Roos and I set out once more this morning to see what we could of the city; and meeting Mr. Prevost, we availed ourselves of his polite offer of showing us the mint. It is, indeed, a magnificent building,—I was going to say, too magnificent for Chile, till I recollected that it was erected by the Spanish government chiefly for the assay and stamping of the product of those rich mines, which the mother country long considered as the only objects to be attended to in her American dominions. The building is of a single range of fine Doric three-quarter columns and pilasters, which cover two stories; i.e. the public works below, and the houses of the officers above. On entering a handsome gate, another interior building, like the cell of a temple, of the same order, presents itself; and there the treasury, and mint, and assay office are situated. The 220 machinery is clumsy beyond what I could have imagined, and the improvement talked of is to be on a French model; which will be more expensive than one of Boulton’s, and, compared with it, is as the old hammer for striking coin is to the screw dies now used here. The greater part of the coin still current in Chile is of rough pieces of silver, weighed and cut in any shape, and struck with the hammer, and far ruder than any I had seen before. This mode of coining is, however, now discontinued; and the scarcely less tedious method of first punching the metal, and then placing each piece by hand in the screw, has taken place of it. The assay department, however, is in a better, i.e. a more modern state; but I am too sorry a chemist to be able to give a proper account of it. I understand government has it in contemplation to issue a coinage of low value, which will be of great advantage to the people. I have often been struck with the inconvenience of the want of small coin here. There is nothing in circulation under the value of a quartillo, or quarter of a real, which, if the dollar be worth four shillings and sixpence, is more than three half-pence; and quartillos are not coined here, and are so scarce, that I have only seen three since April: consequently we may call the smallest common coin the medio, or near threepence halfpenny; a sum for which, at the price of bread and beef here, a whole family may be fed. What then is the single labourer to do? This evil, great as it is, has occasioned a greater. In order to accommodate purchasers with a quantity under the value of a medio, or quartillo, the owners of pulperias (a kind of huckster’s shops) give in exchange for dollars or reals promissory notes: but these notes, even where the article bought is half a dollar, and the note for half, the pulperia man will not discount in cash, but in goods; so that he makes sure of the poor man’s whole coin, besides the chance that a peasant, who does not read or write, may lose or destroy the note itself. Many and rapid fortunes have been made by these notes, and the loss to the poor has amounted to more than any one of the government direct taxes. This has not been overlooked by some of the great merchants connected with the minister here; and a number of retail shops have been set up at their expense, though under the names of 221 inferior agents. And this is probably one of the reasons for the delay of the very necessary coinage of small money.

From the mint we went to the Consulado, where I meant to have been at the very beginning of the sitting. I had previously asked the Director if there was any objection to a woman going thither. He told me his mother and sister had gone on the first day, and that it was open to strangers; but in case the unusual appearance of a lady should startle the members, he would speak to the President. Mr. De Roos and I went thither, unhappily without any person to tell us who was who. However, we knew that the President was Albano, the deputy from Talca, and the Vice-president Camillo Henriquez, the editor of the “Mercurio de Chile,” and an occasional poet.

We entered just as the house was passing a resolution, that in discussing the project of laws, the consent of two-thirds of the members should be necessary for the passing each article. There were not above twenty members present, and about half a dozen lookers-on besides ourselves. The chamber is a very fine one, from its great size. At one end is the President’s seat, under a very handsome canopy of blue, red, and white, enriched with gold. When the Director appears this is his place, and the President sits on his right hand; the Deputies sit on benches close to the wall on either side, the Secretaries and Vice-president at a table immediately before the President, and the spectators on benches like those of the members, only at a greater distance from the President. After all, I thought it was a strange position for an English woman and an English midshipman to be assisting at the deliberation of a national representative assembly in Chile. But what in Addison’s time would have been romance, is now, every day, matter of fact. I was in the Mahratta capital while it was protected by an English force; I have attended a protestant church in the Piazza de Trajano in Rome; I sat as a spectator in an English court of justice in Malta: and what wonder that I should now listen to the free deliberations of a national representative meeting in a Spanish colony? Perhaps the world never experienced so great a change as in the last thirty-five years: that all should have been for the better, no one, who reflects on the imperfect 222 state of humanity, will believe; but I will hope that most of these changes have bettered the general condition of human nature. How long I might have gone on musing I do not know, if the Vice-President and Secretary had not interrupted the silence that followed the resolution passed when we entered, by reading the report of it to the President, who having approved of it, the house proceeded. The President then read a message from the Director, submitting to the assembly the propriety of sending envoys to different foreign states, and desiring them to appoint proper salaries. This gave rise to a lively discussion of a much freer tone than I had expected in so young a convention, especially one appointed by the executive power alone. To the expediency of sending the envoys there was no opposition; but on the appointing salaries there were several questions;—first, could it be done before the actual revenue of the country was ascertained and reported to the convention; and next, could a grant of money be made for a new purpose while the army was so greatly in arrear (upwards of 18,000 dollars)? They might have added the navy also. The speech of the President on opening the business, and also his reply to the proposed amendment requesting that the public accounts should be looked into before funds were allotted for such a purpose, were extremely clever, and delivered with the ease and eloquence of a man accustomed to speak in public: he is a priest. The discussion was very warm, but carried on with great decorum, the members, in their ordinary dresses, standing up in their places; and when two rose at once, he that first caught the President’s eye had the preference.

I was very much gratified with my visit to the convention, and withdrew from it with hopes of a speedier and firmer settlement of a regular government here than I had hitherto allowed myself to entertain.

It seems to me, that the progress made is astonishing; but I believe that men, like other articles, arise when there is a demand for them. There are elements in Chile for the formation of a state; but education is wanting before that which essentially constitutes a state will be found; i.e.—

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Hitherto a strong feeling of resentment against past tyranny, on the part of Spain, has urged them on: but their ideas still continue essentially Spanish; and time and education are still wanting to develop and form the Chileno national character.

On returning home I found Doña Isabella and Doña Rosa O’Higgins waiting to see me; though I had been assured it was impossible they should call at the house of Cotapos. But, now that there is not one of the Carreras left, and that that faction is believed to be at an end, it is surely the business of those at the head of the affairs of Chile to buy golden opinions of all sorts of men; and I have no doubt but that they are glad I am here as an excuse to call without the formalities of reconciliation.

In the evening I went to the palace, and had a great deal of conversation with the Director, especially concerning the early part of the revolution, in which he has borne so conspicuous a share. Mentioning the scarcity of arms, while the patriot army occupied the banks of the Maule, he said that the people had often no arms but the yokes of their oxen, with which they fought the royalists hand to hand. He himself, among other expedients, had a wooden cannon made, bound round with green hide, which stood four discharges and then burst. I engaged him to speak of his own part in public affairs, which he did modestly and freely; until several gentlemen entering, the conversation became general. It turned upon the affairs of the Libertador Simon Bolivar, and the reception of the Spanish deputies in the Caraccas; deprecating the idea of listening to any terms not founded on the acknowledgment of the independence of Spanish America.

I left the palace early, and then walked across the square to see the evening shopping in the arcades, which is quite as pretty a scene as I expected it to be: every little bench has its candle or lamp; the best wares are displayed; and, as it is a sort of dressed lounge, the ladies look particularly well. This place is beautiful by day, but by 224 moonlight is still more so,—the defects are less seen, the beauties more observed. At night the shadows cast by the far-projecting roofs prevent our noticing the lowness of the houses; but the wide streets, and handsome public buildings, and, above all, the lofty mountains, which tower above every thing, and which, although at least twenty miles hence, seem actually to touch the city, appear to the greatest advantage.

Sunday, Sept. 1st, 1822.—I went this evening with my friends to the house of the ladies Godoy, where we found M. Prevost, and about a dozen other persons, apparently waiting for us to take a walk into the country. Accordingly we set off, the elder ladies in caleches, the rest of us on foot, to the plain where the Chinganas usually are. But, alas! no Chinganas were there. The city is making a nine-days’ rogation to St. Isidore for rain; and the amusements of the common people are hushed by way of assistance. However, though the musicians’ waggons are banished from the plain, there is the usual quantity of frying, roasting, and codling, going on at the fruit-stalls, and at least as much drinking; and the people gaping about, seemingly wondering what St. Isidore and the rogation have to do with the singing-women, who must to-day lose their accustomed reals and medios. However they take it quietly, and say, “To be sure the gardens want rain, and the padres know best how to pray.” When all our party had reached the plain, we walked towards one of the prettiest parts of it, and there we found that the servants of the house of Godoy had laid carpets, and set chairs and cushions for the party; and, at little tables adjoining, they were making tea and matee with milk, and had fruits and cakes for the party. As soon as we were seated, Doña Carmen Godoy presented us each with a flower; she is remarkably lively, and had some pleasant thing to say to each. The cavaliers began to serve the ladies, and we passed an hour very pleasantly, and then walked about among the people, observing their different dresses and games. The young ladies are not allowed by custom to take the arm of a cavalier, although they waltz and dance with them. Some few fair Chilenos are beginning to break through this rule; but our young ladies continue to be exceedingly punctilious. 225 The people of Chile, in their taste for rural amusements, put me in mind of what we are told of the inhabitants of the happy valley of Cashmeer, who spend their days and moonlight nights in skiffs, floating about their lovely lake, or wandering in the flowery islands that adorn it. A Chileno family knows no pleasure greater than a walking or riding party into the country; a matee taken in a garden, or on the brow of a hill under some huge tree; and all ranks seem sensible to the same enjoyment. At sunset we all adjourned to the Casa Cotapos, where the young people sung and danced to a late hour.

In the forenoon, Don Camilo Henriques, the deputy from Valdivia, and the last month’s secretary to the convention, called; he is clever and agreeable: with him was Dr. Vera, a man of literature and a poet. He has the talent of extemporary versification, if what I hear be true, in as great a degree as Metastasio; and it is also said that his written poetry is as polished. This gentleman is a perfect Albino: his hair, eyes, and complexion, all are like those we sometimes see in Europe; but his intellect is far from partaking of the weakness which has generally been observed to accompany the physical peculiarity of the Albinos: on the contrary, it is above the common rate of his countrymen; indeed I may say more, Dr. Vera would figure as a literary man in Europe. He is lately released from the discomfort of a goitre: his was remarkably large, so much so indeed as to threaten him with suffocation, when a friend advised him to bathe it with Cologne water. This he did diligently several times a day, and the swelling is now so decreased that he wears a neckcloth like another man; and I did not perceive that he had a goitre till I was told of it. Nobody pretends to account for this cure: I write it as he relates it.

2d Sept.—At ten o’clock Mr. Prevost, Mr. de Roos, Doña Mariquita, Don Jose Antonio, and I, set off to see the baths of Colinas, about ten leagues or a little more from the city. The first three leagues of road are on that which leads to Mendoza, and lie along a plain, for the most part stony, with the exception of a little rise, called the Portesuelo or Gap, by which we passed between two hills 226 to another part of the plain; the part near the city is covered principally with garden grounds, irrigated from the Salta de Agua: beyond the Portesuelo, we came to a very extensive hacienda belonging to one of the Izquierdas, where every thing was in preparation for the annual rodeo. The scenery of a cattle farm, being like that of our forest lands at home, is much more picturesque than any other; but it is wilder, and gives less the air of civilisation. We passed along by the foot of a high mountain projecting immediately from the Andes for about four leagues more, and then entered the Gargana, or gorge of the mountain in which the baths are situated. The approach to it is marked by wider channels of floods, now partially dried, higher trees, and more varied though confined scenery. We had passed in the morning several farm-houses; at one of which we had stopped to rest, and get refreshments. The farm servants being all about, gave an air of liveliness and interest. But now we lost sight of all marks of habitation, and proceeded along the gorge by a narrow path made with some labour, but scarcely safe for five or six miles, when we came to the baths. Nothing can be more desolate than their appearance now, and perhaps the dulness of the day contributed to that effect. Midwinter still reigns; no grass enlivens the red mountain side; but here and there an evergreen shrub, with its spiry buds still closely folded, overhangs the valley below. A bright beautiful stream breaks its way down the whole vale, and the sources of this are the celebrated baths. From under the living rock, several copious springs gush out at a temperature not below 100° of Fahrenheit. The water is perfectly limpid, and without peculiar taste or smell, but is said to acquire both if bottled up a few hours. Over the fountain heads, two little ranges of brick buildings, each divided into several rooms (three I think in one, and four in the other, or three in each), are built to protect the baths from rain or from dust: the water is lodged in hollows of the rock, with a brick facing, in which there is a square outlet to permit it to run out freely; so that through each basin there is a constant stream passing, and not communicating with any other. The quantity of hot water is so great, that on flowing out of the baths, with the 227 addition of one small branch, it forms the river Colinas, which has a meandering course of upwards of thirty leagues, and feeds the lake of Pudaguel. Adjoining to the baths are three long ranges of buildings, each containing ten or twelve apartments, and a general veranda along the front of the whole; and these furnish the accommodation for the bathers who frequent Colinas in the summer, that is, from November till June. The waters are considered good for rheumatism, jaundice, scrofula, and all cutaneous diseases. One range of buildings is for the accommodation of the poorer sort, and there the rooms are about six feet by seven; and into each a whole family will creep; having first built a shed for a kitchen in some contiguous spot. The rich are accommodated in the same manner, only that their rooms are larger, some of them being fifteen feet square. But while at Colinas, people live chiefly out of doors; for then the mountain side is beautiful with flowers, and the woods are dry and shady. The little chapel occupies the prettiest spot in the valley; but now it is shut up, neither priest nor parishioner being tempted to winter here among the snow and barrenness. So in the first week in June or earlier, the patients withdraw, the doors are shut up, the priest takes the key of his chapel, and all is left in solitude.

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We seated ourselves in one of the verandas, and ate the luncheon we had brought with us; and I was so cold that I was glad to drink the warm water from the spring with my wine, and warm my hands in it. While the horses were getting ready, Doña Mariquita and I had the curiosity to enter one of the rooms which we found open, and dearly we paid for our curiosity; for we were instantly covered with myriads of fleas, who I suppose had had no fresh food for several months, for they attacked us so unmercifully, that I thought I had some violent eruption on my skin. After we had mounted and reached the little knoll behind the chapel, I stood a moment to look back at the tenantless houses, deserted fane, bare bleak banks, and now darkly lowering clouds; so different from the cheerful character which I have been told belongs to it in summer, when the sick and old who come in quest of health and vigour, bear a small proportion to the young and strong who come in search of pleasure or beauty, which last the Colinas waters are firmly believed to bestow: but though Doña Mariquita and I applied them to our faces, we were not sensible of any change; and so had no fairy tales to tell after our journey. As soon as we quitted the gorge, instead of pursuing the road back to the city, we turned to the right; and after a gallop of three leagues arrived at the village of Colinas, the first stage from St. Iago to Mendoza, and about half way between the city and the famous field of Chacabuco.

About half a mile beyond the church of Colinas is the hacienda of Don Jorge Godoy, with whose lady and daughter I am well acquainted. There we were to sleep, and so return home in the morning. We found the old gentleman sitting at his door after the fatigues of the day in his cap and slippers, and poncho. He very rarely goes to town, but resides here with his nephew, like a patriarch in the midst of his husbandmen. It began to rain heavily, to the credit of St. Isidore, as soon as we got into the house; and we congratulated ourselves on being sheltered from the storm, and having the comfort of a huge brassero of coals, and sheepskins laid under our 229 feet while we took matee, more refreshing still than tea after a day’s journey.

In due time a most plentiful supper appeared, beginning with eggs in various forms, followed by stews and ollas of beef, mutton, and fowls, and terminated by apples; to which full justice was done, from the egg to the apple, as well as to Don Jorge’s wines.

September 3d.—This morning the sun rose clear and bright, and discovered the Andes, and even the nearer hills, completely covered with snow which fell last night, while it rained below. Before breakfast we were shown the storehouses of the farm. First, the granary, now nearly emptied of its wheat: on one part of the spare floor a well-dried hide was spread, and on it fresh beef for immediate use, according to the fashion of the country, cut in strips about three inches wide, the bones being thrown away. There were, besides, hanging round thongs of every kind, and laças, and bands all ready for use. Within the granary was a second dispense, hung round with tallow candles; on the floor, there were many hundred arobas of tallow in skins, ready for sale; and, in one corner, I saw a heap of skimmings, i.e. the refuse fat after the melting of the suet for tallow. This, I find, is what the peons use, instead of butter or oil, to enrich their cookery, and it is as necessary to them as ghee to an East Indian. In another place, were the yokes and goads for the oxen, and the spades for the diggers of water-channels, &c.; these are of very hard wood, with a long handle, the use of iron spades being, as yet, confined to the gardens near the city and places near the port, where foreigners have made them common. A side-door in the storehouse admitted us into a square court; on one side of which is the butchery, where, in the proper season, that is, late in autumn, the beasts are slaughtered for hides, tallow, and charqui. At present it looks like an unfinished shed; in the season it is covered with green boughs, in order that the animals, and all about them, may be kept cool. On one side of the square is a melting-house for the tallow. The pots are made of clay upon the estate; they are two inches and a half thick. Next to the melting-house is the shed with 230 furnaces for boiling the lees, which they put into the wine to hasten the fermentation; and beyond, a still of the simplest kind for making brandy. From sixteen to twenty labouring families live on the estate, and twice or thrice that number of hired peons are employed at different seasons, when there is a press of work. The wages of these are high, not from the high price of food, but from the want of hands.

The low population of Chile, notwithstanding the natural fruitfulness of the soil, and a climate favourable to human life, is not wonderful. The grants of land to the first Spanish settlers still remain, for the greater part, unrevoked. These are so extensive, that between Santiago and Valparaiso three superior lords, or mayorasgos, possess the soil. Now the original proprietors, intent only on the procuring of the precious metals, the only thing then looked for in this country, cultivated no more of the land than was sufficient for the supplying their household with necessaries: this cultivation, scanty as it was, was performed by encomiendas, or duty-work, done by the Indians; and this was a species of slavery highly unfavourable to the advance of population. In the first year of the revolution, duty-work and slavery were utterly abolished. Servants are now paid, and they are beginning to have houses of their own, with little gardens. Yet still much duty-work is done, in fact, by the peons and half Indians on every estate, although it may not be strictly legal: but what are the poor to do? They must take their shelter and their food from some employer, and the employer will often exact from his servant labours beyond the law. Government has it now in contemplation to empower mayorasgos to sell small portions of their lands, and to grant either long or perpetual leases, by which means the soil will fall into the hands of those who have a personal interest in it, and population will grow with the means of supporting it.

On our return from the farm-yard we found an excellent breakfast awaiting us, and our horses brought in from the clover (lucern) field to be saddled while we ate; and then returned to Santiago, which we reached about one o’clock.

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I spent the evening in my room, where the young ladies came occasionally to me; and Mr. De Roos, Don Jose Antonio, and Don Domingo Reyes, spent the evening. Don Domingo is a grave, well-informed, kindly person, to whom I am obliged for much of the knowledge I have of the country, both historical and physical. His father was secretary to Don Ambrose O’Higgins, and to several other captains-general; he was even so to Osorio, in the interval between the battle of Rancagua and that of Chacabuco, after which he emigrated. But his conduct had always been so honest and honourable that all parties trusted him, and none disliked him. He was therefore recalled, his property restored, and himself employed. The character of Don Domingos is one formed by the times: a pre-eminent point in it is love for the father he has seen so tried. And he is pious,—I should say almost to superstition, did I not know what a life he has seen; yet he is quietly cheerful, and actively kind to his friends, and possesses a most affectionate disposition. My friend Don Antonio has neither the knowledge, nor intelligence, nor cultivation of Reyes; but he is good-natured and kind-hearted. He takes half a dozen matees when he first rises, smokes segars all day, goes to his counting-house I believe regularly, and at night loves to dance cuandos, and sing, and play the guitar better elsewhere than at home; all this is not very unnatural, and moreover not inconsistent with the character of a Chile beau: to-night he sung and played very pleasantly several of the songs with which the young gentlemen of Chile serenade their loves; a custom at least as prevalent here as in Italy. After all, the most beautiful thing of the kind in the world is Shakspeare’s own, “Hark, the lark at heaven’s gate sings;” which puts to shame all other minstrelsy to ladies sleeping, or waking in the hope of hearing music.

Thursday, Sept. 5th.—A large party, consisting of the whole of the Cotapos family, and a number of others, amounting to thirty, including Mr. Prevost, Mr. De Roos, and myself, spent a day in the country. The ladies who did not ride went in carretons, small covered vehicles of the country, in which they sit on carpets and cushions. The servants 232 and provisions were in another, thatched at the top exactly like a cottage. The whole party was collected in the pateo of the Casa Cotapos, and set off by nine o’clock, as gay as youth, health, and a resolution to be pleased, could make them. I should say us; for, at least in the resolution to be pleased, I equalled the rest.

After a short pleasant ride of about five miles to the eastward, we reached Nnuñoa, a pleasant village, where the bishop has a seat, and where, a chacra having been lent us for the purpose, we spent a most agreeable day. The place is exceedingly pretty, being full of gardens and orchards, and surrounded by corn-fields; and the rich background of mountains on every side, especially the cold snowy Andes, set off the flowery fields of Nnuñoa to the greatest advantage.

Doña Mariquita and I, with two or three others, among whom was Doña Mariquita’s father, Don Jose Miguel de Cotapos, a most gentlemanlike old man, in his poncho of plain Vicunha wool of the natural colour, and his broad hat, his silver-mounted bridle, stirrups, &c., rode off to a casita about two leagues farther on.—I should have described our party. Don Jose Miguel was not the only man in a poncho, or rather few went without, though several of the young men had tied theirs round their waists, instead of wearing them over their shoulders. Most had Chileno saddles, with all manner of carpets and skins upon them. All the ladies had English saddles; the greater number of female riders had coloured spencers, and long white skirts with close bonnets and flowers; two had small opera-hats and feathers, and beautiful silk dresses: only my maid and I had sober riding-habits. We looked like some gay cavalcade in a fairy tale, rather than people going to ride soberly on the earth; and I was sorry that I could not sketch the figures. Here Mariquita in scarlet and white, and a becoming black beaver bonnet; there Rosario with a brown spencer, flowing white skirt, straw bonnet, and roses not so gay as her cheeks; then Mercedes Godoy and another Mercedes, with feathers gracefully waving in the wind, reining up their managed horses, and their silks glittering in the sun: and by their sides the merry Erreda with his green frock; Jose Antonio with his poncho 233 of turquois blue, striped with flowers; and De Roos with his grey silk jacket and sunny British countenance. While Reyes and some of the graver men attended the carretons, where the elder ladies were all dressed in gala habits. Such was the show at Nnuñoa, when our small party determined to ride on to the Casita de Gana, the most elevated dwelling in the neighbourhood. The road to it is very beautiful, between fields of corn and olive gardens, and through a pretty hamlet; whence a lane, bordered by willows just coming into leaf, leads to the casita. It is a small house, decorated with coloured paper and prints, and only calculated for a few days’ summer residence. It is so high on the slope of the cordillera that the master can always command snow to cool his drink; and he has two unfailing springs crossing his orchard. The view from hence is very fine: several villages and rich corn land are in the fore-ground; then the city, with Sta. Lucia and San Cristoval, and the adjacent hills, which in other countries would be mountains; beyond that the plain, terminated by the Cuesta de Prado, now capped with snow.

On our return to the Nnuñoa we found our friends busy dancing to the quita. They had procured two musicians to hire, and were engaged in minuets, and Spanish country-dances, perhaps the most graceful in the world. But what most delighted me were the cuando and samba, danced and sung with more spirit than the city manners allow; yet still decorous. Dancing can express only two passions,—the hatred of war, and love. Even the grave minuet de la cour will, by its approaching, retiring, presenting of hands, separating, and final meeting, express the latter; how much more the rustic dance that gives the quarrel and reconciliation! This it is which makes dancing a fine art. The mere figures of dances where more than two are concerned, such as vulgar French or English dances, have as little to do with the poetry of dancing as the inventors of patterns for printed linens have to do with the poetry of painting. My Chilenos feel dancing; and even when they dance a Scotch reel, they contrive to infuse a little of the spirit of the muse into it.

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The dancing was interrupted by dinner, after which a new talent was displayed by some of my friends. Doña Mariquita was first called on for a toast: she gave one in four couplets of graceful poetry adapted to the occasion and the company, with an ease that showed she was accustomed to extempore composition. This was followed by several others, some really witty from the gentlemen; and the young people of both sexes who possessed this charming talent exercised it when called on, equally without shyness and without ostentation.

In the evening I undertook to make tea for the dancers; after which we rode back to the city as gay a cavalcade as ever entered it, and the day was ended by a tertulla at the Casa Cotapos.

5th September.—Visited several persons, English and Chileno. I say nothing of the English here, because I do not know them except as very civil vulgar people, with one or two exceptions, Mr. B., for instance, commonly called Don Diego; he has lived many years here since the revolution, and says he has never met with injustice or unkindness in the country: he knows it better than most persons. Mr. C. has gone through much,—has I may say been a party in the southern war, lending his money, horses, and ships to the patriot cause; and he, I think, seems to possess the clearest ideas concerning the state of Chile of any man I have met with. And there are several very good people, some acting the fine gentleman, others playing the knave, just as it happens in other places; only I do wish that some more of the better specimens of English were here, for the honour of our nation and the benefit of Chile.

7th.—I went early to the national printing-office, which is creditable enough to the little state; but the types are very scanty. I doubt if they could print a quarto of four hundred pages. I bought the gazettes from 1818 to the present time; nothing was printed here before. I also got some laws, rules, and songs. Under the old Spanish government I believe Chile had no press at all, but am not quite sure; nor could I learn. But every thing necessary was printed 235 at Lima; i.e. every thing that the Viceroy, the Archbishop, and the Grand Inquisitor chose to promulgate.

In the afternoon we went to visit the nuns of St. Augustin’s. Thank God, by the new regulations the convents have all become so poor, that there is good hope the number will soon diminish. These nuns are old and ugly, with the exception of one, who is young, has sweet eyes, and is very pale; a dangerous beauty for a cavalier: she moved my pity. The old ladies gave us matee, the best I have tasted, made with milk and Chile cinnamon; and the cup was set in a tray of flowers, so that both taste and smell were gratified. This convent is one of the finest in Chile, having seven quadrangles: we saw through the parlour into one of them, where, in the centre of a pool, there is the ugliest Virgin that man ever cut in stone, intended to spout water from her mouth and breast; but she is now idle, as the fountain is under repair; and the masons, with half a dozen soldiers to guard them or the nuns, were busy round the pool. During the short time I remained at the grate, I heard more gossip than I have done for months, and perceived that the recluses continue to take a lively interest in the things of this wicked world. I was not sorry when summoned to go to another place; and having left a golden remembrancer with the good ladies, I accompanied Mr. Prevost and Mr. de Roos to the public library. There may be about ten or twelve thousand volumes lodged for the present in the college; but the convent of San Domingo having offered its library to the state, these books are to be transferred thither as soon as rooms are ready, and the whole will then be open to the public. The librarian is Don Manuel de Salas y Corbalan, a polite and well-informed man, who showed me a beautiful Cluverius, and told me he prided himself on the collection of voyages, travels, and geography. Law fills up half the shelves; and there is a great proportion of French, but little English, and of that little Vancouver’s Voyage is best known; because as it has slandered Chile, they are all too angry here not to point it out to all visitors. I met in the library the deputy Albano, whom I 236 had seen as president of the Convention, and with whom I had an hour’s pleasant conversation. In passing by the law-shelves he said, “Here is the plague of Chile: thirty seven thousand of these ordinances are still in force, and there are at least thrice the number of commentaries on them. The Chilenos are extremely litigious; it is honourable to have a pleyto; and yet a pleyto often lasts for years, and ruins more families than all the other causes of ruin, except gambling, put together.” Albano hopes to effect some establishment analogous to that of our justices of the peace, to obviate the evil of arbitrary imprisonments, which are frequent here. He mentioned with respect a royal decree of 1718, for the guidance of the judges of districts in Spanish America, and seemed to wish that it might be adopted here as the basis of the civil administration.

I was so pleased with the President’s discourse, that I was quite sorry to be reminded that I had already encroached on the complaisance of the librarian, and that the ladies Godoy expected me to take matee. To them I went, however, and met pretty Madame Blanco, the wife of the former Rear-admiral of Chile, now San Martin’s naval commander-in-chief. She is gay and pleasing.

8th.—I bought my roan horse Fritz: he has white feet, and two blue eyes; is tall and strong, and never carried a woman in his life: but I wanted to give my pet Charles some rest, so thought twenty dollars not too much; therefore I gave it at once, mounted Fritz without ceremony, and rode to the Director’s chacra with Mr. de Roos, to pay a forenoon visit. We were not allowed, however, to leave it before dinner. We found the ladies sitting in their garden, with their little Indian girls playing about them. This place is called the Conventilla, and belonged to the Franciscan friars, who long ago began building close to it a church to Our Lady, and collected money from every passenger for the completion of the chapel; which, however, never made any progress, notwithstanding the large sums that were levied in this manner on the public. The Director, therefore, bought all the ground, and bargained with the friars for their church; 237 so that he has caused that imposition to cease: besides, his purchasing, building, and planting to the extent he is doing, gives people confidence in the stability of the government; and that confidence of itself will contribute to the stability it looks to. This is rather a remarkable day in Chile: Rodriguez the bishop, who has long been an exile on account of his political principles, and his interference in state matters, has at length been recalled. A few days since he came privately to his lodge at Nnuñoa; and to-day he made his first public appearance in the cathedral. Before that ceremony he waited on the Director, who congratulated him on his return to his diocese, telling him he trusted that he would henceforth remember that the advancement of the age and of public opinion demanded a more liberal feeling and action in ecclesiastical matters, than was the case formerly; that he trusted to His Lordship’s good sense to shape his conduct accordingly: but that while he was Director of Chile, neither pope nor priest should possess temporal power, or a right of exemption from the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the country. The bishop then proceeded to take fresh possession of the see, with what appetite he might; and performed a solemn Mass himself in the cathedral on the occasion. His restoration has given satisfaction to many of the devout, who have languished for their spiritual pastor; to numerous private connections, by whom the bishop is beloved; and more than all, to the families of persons exiled for political crimes, because seeing the greatest of these recalled, they may entertain hopes of the restoration of others.⁕45

Fortunately for us there were no strangers but ourselves; and the 238 Director readily led the conversation to the affairs of Chile, and to the events of his own life.⁕46 Of the recent affairs in Peru (the displacing Monteagudo, &c.) he expressed himself with regret, considering that minister’s conduct, and the consequences of it, as a stain on the good cause. I wish I had dared to hint, that a conduct as bad, though in a different way, in Rodriguez, his own minister, was producing effects at least as vexatious here.

We walked a good deal about the gardens, and amused ourselves for some time with a fine telescope; through which the Director pointed out to me many farms on the plain of Maypu, in the line of the canal of irrigation which he has made since he was Director, where all was formerly barren, and behind whose thickets robbers and murderers concealed themselves, so that the roads were unsafe. These ruffians have now disappeared, and peaceful farms occupy the ground. From the garden we went in to dinner, where all was plain and handsome. English neatness gave the Chileno dishes every thing I had ever thought wanting in them. Doña Isabella, Doña Rosa, Doña Xaviera the Director’s niece a beautiful young woman, and one aide-de-camp, besides ourselves, formed the whole party. The little Indians had a low table in the corner, where the little daughter of the Cacique presided; and where they were served with as much respect as Doña Rosa herself. The entrance of some strangers after dinner put an end to all confidential intercourse; and I then walked about the house with Doña Isabella. The ladies’ bed-rooms are neat and comfortable every way. The Director, when here, sleeps on a little portable camp-bed; and to judge by his room, is not very studious of personal accommodation. At sunset we returned to town, and at the same time His Excellency’s family went thither also to attend the opera, which Doña Rosa never misses. Their equipage is English; and though plain, handsome.

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Monday, September 9th.—This morning, Doña Rosario, Don Jose Antonio, Mr. de Roos, and I, attended by my peon Felipe, left the city on a little expedition to the hacienda of Don Justo Salinas, a son-in-law of my host. The road lies over the plain of Maypu, which is perfectly level between the city and the river, a distance of from twenty to thirty miles; and this is the part newly fertilised by the Director’s canal, which waters the land formerly barren between the Mapocho and Maypu. The old Spanish government had at one time the same object in view; but after spending a large sum in preparation for the water-courses, nothing was done. The republic has laid out 25,000 dollars on the main canal; and by selling the land at a nominal valuation, a small annual quitrent only being payable, but requiring 500 dollars for the water sufficient for a large farm, has repaid itself, or rather I should say, has raised a large sum,—near 200,000 dollars, I am told. The proprietor of each farm is bound to face his part of the canal with stone, and to maintain the water-course. The crops are looking very fine all along the plain; the soil seems to me to be a light vegetable mould mixed with sand, and full of pebbles, as if it had been long under water: these pebbles are larger and more irregular on the plain than in the beds of the Mapocho or Maypu, excepting where the latter, in the very midst of its channel, has lodged or uncovered rocks of considerable size. Midway between the city and the river, one of the little ranges of hills which cross the plain at right angles with the Andes, and seem to connect the inferior ridges of the Prado and others with the grand cordillera, runs across the road, sinking completely into the plain before it reaches the mountain. The pass between the last little cone of this range and the main part is called the Portesuelo of St. Austin de Fango; and just at its entrance there are a few cottages, surrounded by some little orchards watered by an old cut from the Maypu, the sight of which was quite refreshing after a fifteen miles’ ride without a variety. Fifteen miles more, very nearly as monotonous, brought us to the ford of the rapid and turbid Maypu. This river flows out of the Andes, 240 where there is a pass called the Portillo, little practised, because the sides are so steep as to afford no escape from the avalanches that continually roll down from above. It is, however, shorter than that by the Cumbre, and is often passable when the latter is not. I am told that the scenery in that deep valley, where the rapid flood breaks its way over a rugged bed, and makes frequent falls, is truly sublime; and were the season favourable, I should be tempted to go half a day’s journey into it. The passage of the Maypu is exceedingly dangerous during the floods, and must be at times impassable, if I may judge by the depth of the banks on either side, which cannot be much less than forty feet; and the space between them must be nearly a quarter of a mile. Within this great bed the river now divides itself into several channels, which are all easily forded, the main branch indeed being deep and rapid: over this there is a bridge of the ancient Indian construction, which is used when the river is not fordable. It consists of upright poles, fixed at both sides of the stream; and across these thongs of hide are stretched, and these again interlaced with others, so as to make a swinging bridge, suspended now as it seems in mid air. This simple bridge is removed during the great floods, and replaced as soon as the ordinary passage is opened. On the north side of the river there is not a tree, and the eye ranges over an immense space without a rising ground of any kind; on the south side the country is richer, and more cultivated, particularly at Viluco; near which is the village and the chapel of Maypu, the parish church of an immense district. Viluca is an estate belonging to the Marques la Rayna, one of the richest men in Chile: it is worth about 25,000 dollars a year, and is in a high state of cultivation; a wall two full leagues in length separates it from the road, and I was really weary of it. The walls for enclosures here are formed of clay beaten hard into wooden frames fixed on the spot, and removed when filled to the end of the former piece, and filled again; so that when it is done, the wall looks as if of giant bricks. At length we came to a piece of bad muddy road on the banks of the little river Painé, which 241 runs rapidly from a projecting branch of the cordillera, which advances here so as almost to meet the Cerro de Penigue, and forms the narrow pass, or Angostura de Paine, commonly called here l’Angostura, through which the road leads to Rancagua. From Paine, where there is a post-house, the road is bordered on each side with magnificent trees, chiefly maytenes; and country-houses and rich plantations take place of the wide and wild plain we had passed. One of the finest estates belongs to the hospital of San Juan de Deos, and is rented by one of the Valdezes; and there we turned off the main road to follow the course of a beautiful river which flows out of the pass, and is therefore commonly called the Rio de l’Angostura. We passed some haciendas of Erreda’s and Solar’s, and then arrived at that of Salinas, where we were most kindly received by both master and mistress: she is the eldest daughter of my host and hostess, the widow of the unfortunate Juan Jose Carrera, who I trust has found in her second marriage some compensation for the sufferings endured during the first. She has one of the most beautiful faces I ever beheld: an eye both to entreat and to command; and a mouth which neither painter or sculptor, in his imagined Hebes or Graces, could equal. Her age is now only twenty-five; her countenance would say seventeen; and as I stood a moment entranced by her beauty, and remembered her story, I doubted whether I had not suddenly dreamed of things that romances only had hitherto brought me familiar with. Don Justo is a fine well-looking young man, two years younger than his wife. They were not a little delighted to see their brother and sister; but their welcome was almost as kind to Mr. de Roos and me.

The evening was excessively cold, a brisk wind from the mountain having set in; and we all crowded round the brassero, which was placed in the corner of a very pretty drawing-room, till supper was served, about nine o’clock; and we were complimented on having ridden well, as the distance from the city is upwards of fourteen leagues, which we had done in nine hours with the same horses, 242 including two hours’ rest, which we had given our steeds, and some time wasted in mending my stirrup, which broke on the road.

10th.—Breakfast in Chile is usually at a latish hour, and consists sometimes of soup, or meat and wine; but every body takes matee or chocolate at their bed side. Doña Ana Maria, aware how different our customs are, sent tea, bread and butter, and eggs, to my room, for Mr. de Roos and me. I ought to describe the house. The outer door opens into the principal bed-room, which is the common sitting-room. On one side is a dressing-closet, and the nursery for the two little boys; on the other, the drawing-room; and beyond that the dining-room, a light cheerful apartment. A veranda runs along the front; and from it other apartments enter, such as Salinas’ own room, and bed-rooms for guests. Doña Rosario and I occupied one, and Don Jose Antonio and Mr. de Roos another. But the privacy of bed-rooms is not respected in Chile as in England; so I find an additional advantage in my habit of rising early, as it anticipates intrusion. Great part of the day is passed in the veranda; and I do not wonder at it, the air is so pleasant and the view so fine. In the course of the day I saw almost the whole farm; and first I went into the vineyards. The principal one is two quadras, about the sixth of a mile, square: the vines are supported on stakes, and are pruned down to five feet in height. The soil between the rows is not annually loosened, as in Italy, but only once in twenty or thirty years the roots are laid open and trimmed. From the vineyard we proceeded to the orchard, where there are walnuts, peaches, plums, apricots, pears, and cherries, only beginning to blossom; because, besides that we are now nearly a degree farther to the south, we are nearer the mountain here, and more exposed to the chilly winds. From the orchard we went to look at the cows, which are very fine; the calves are beautiful. But the dairy is very ill managed here: with sixteen fine milch cows they do not make twelve pounds of butter a week; nay, sometimes not above half that quantity; and the quantity of cheese is inconsiderable, though both the butter 243 and cheese are exceedingly good. The sheep are very fine; their fleeces are good, and the wool is of a very long staple, and each fleece fetches at least three reals. The shearing time is October. I also saw a sheep from the Pehuenches with five horns, no two of which seemed to form a pair. Hanging up before the door, there was a young stuffed jaguar, commonly called the Chile lion, an inhabitant of the hills here, and very destructive among the sheep and the young cattle; but I believe it never meddles with man. Don Justo gave me the paw of a large one, which measures six inches across, and must have belonged to a very formidable brute. The cellars are fitted up with earthen jars sunk into the ground, in the same manner as the Jesuits tell us the Indians of the interior practised with their chicha jars. Into the smooth clay floor the jars are sunk nearly to the middle. Each cellar contained about sixty jars, every one holding twenty-five arobas: they are made of clay from the neighbouring hills, and four reals for each aroba they contain is the price. When the must is to be converted into wine, one aroba of boiling grape-juice is poured into every four arobas of must, to hasten the fermentation; the delicacy of making wine consisting in never allowing the juice actually to boil, but to stop it just on the point, lest it should communicate an empyreumatic taste to the wine. The jars are luted up for a season to ripen the liquor; which, when ready, is put into skins, for the merchant. I tasted several sorts of wine and must to-day, most of them very good; and the brandies exceedingly pleasant, though the stills are rudely constructed. In the fields here wheat yields an hundred-fold; barley seventy-fold. The ground is used one year for corn, and two for grazing; lucern being the artificial grass sown. However, some natural kinds of fodder grow spontaneously after the corn. The most pleasant to the cattle, of these, is the alfilerilla, so called from the shape of its seed: it is the musk geraneum, indigenous in England, as well as here; and is said to communicate a pleasant flavour to the flesh of the animals who feed on it at certain seasons. Another favourite plant of the cattle is the cardoon, or large eatable 244 thistle; and it is in season at the end of the dry weather, when it is doubly valuable. I like the thistle heads so well myself, either as salad or stewed, that I am not surprised at the complaints I have heard that the cattle break down hedges to seek them. In the country here, the flies that surround the cow-litter are caught and preserved for their fragrance.

Ip the evening, a certain Don Lucas, who happened to be on a visit at Don Justo’s, played the guitar, and sung several Guaso songs, and danced several dances of the country, especially one called the Campana, which I had never seen, with spirit and glee. Folding the edges of his poncho over his shoulders, he seized his guitar; then leading out one of the ladies, he danced, ogled, played, and sung all at once, in most grotesque style. The campana, indeed, is a pas seul, and the words of the song about as significant as “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle.” However they served to excuse the grimaces of Don Lucas, whose face is as grotesque as Grimaldi’s, to which it bears some resemblance.

I believe this song, like Yankee Doodle, is capable of being lengthened ad infinitum by the singer.

After the dancing was over Don Lucas seated himself in the corner of the room on a low ottoman, and once more tuned his guitar to accompany his voice in some ballads and tristes, which owed more to the words and manner than to the voice; one of them, though abounding with conceits, struck me as being very pretty:—

245 246

Don Justo has the best memory for verses of any person I know, and repeated more songs than I can remember, or than Don Lucas could sing. It is one of the necessary accomplishments of a young Chileno cavalier; so he who cannot sing his song in their country parties may at least tell his story.

Not very long ago Don Justo was dangerously ill at his father-in-law’s house at Santiago; and of course there were vows made for him by all the family, and especially his sisters-in-law, with whom he is a great favourite. On the day he was pronounced out of danger, Jose Antonio and the girls all assembled under his window, and the guitar being tuned to an air of Mariquita’s composition, she first sang her congratulations, and then followed each of her sisters with a verse, and a chorus of the four in the name of the rest of the household, all of Mariquita’s composition. Their tenderness overcame the sick man, and he burst into tears; when Jose Antonio with readiness quickened the measure, and parodied the lines in his own person so gracefully that the tears dried, and from that time Salinas began to recover rapidly. The fashion and talent of occasional versification of course the Spaniards brought with them from Old Spain. Who does not remember the beautiful stanza sung in praise of Preciosa by Clement and Andrew, in Cervantes’ beautiful tale of La Gitanilla? We were all astonished at the lateness of the hour when we separated; but verse and song, and Ana Maria’s beautiful countenance and sweet voice, were excuse enough, if excuse we needed.

11th of September.—Descriptions are very often totally untrue; whence is this? One should think nothing could be so simple as to describe that which we have seen with attention. However not one person in a hundred succeeds in giving to another a true idea of what he has seen. I had a proof of this to-day. We went to see the lake of Aculeo: I had heard it described as round, and deep in hills, and still as Nemi; and, to increase the wonder, that it was salt as the sea. None of all this is true: it is irregular and winding, with sunny islands in it; some steep mountains overhang it, but the margin oftener slopes gently, and affords pasturage to numerous 247 cattle, and its little valley opens to the eastward, on which side it sends forth its stream to swell the river of the Angostura. The road from Don Justo’s to Aculeo is beautiful, through woods and fertile plains, surrounded by mountains watered by numerous streams, and enlivened by several good country-houses; round each of which a village of peons is generally collected, like the large English farm homesteads.

The scenery of the lake reminded me of that around the Lago Maggiore; the snowy Andes, rich banks, and bright islands, even the very climate, seemed those of Northern Italy. We stopped a moment at a small house on the side of the lake where there is usually a boat to be had, but she was under repair. The estate belongs to one of the La Raynas, and the fish from the lake forms a considerable portion of the income from it.

Doña Ana Maria, Doña Rosario, and Jose Antonio, chose to remain at the cottage. Mr. de Roos and myself, attended by the two peons, rode two leagues farther up the right bank of the lake, having first tasted the water, which we found to be perfectly sweet and fresh. I had never seen such forest scenery out of Europe as we passed through on our ride; and then there was the peculiar fragrance of the Chile woods, sometimes from the boughs of the aroma, now in blossom, sometimes from the crushed leaves over which we trod. But this lovely scene is quite solitary; one small fishing house, on an island, alone tells that man has any part in it. But the eagle soars over it, and the swan, and all the meaner tribe of aquatic fowls, brood on it. Consideration for our horses induced us to return, after making one sketch, to our friends at the cottage, where we found dinner awaiting us; and then every body went to sleep,—even I did so for a few minutes. On the estrada lay the ladies; the gentlemen, on the saddlecloths and ponchos, slept the hot hour under the shadow of a tree; and the owners of the cottage each in her separate bed: one of these is a woman of about fifty-five, who is the best horse-breaker in the country, and many an untractable colt is brought to her to tame. At three o’clock every body was roused to take matee, and 248 about four o’clock we rode homewards, the distance being four long leagues. The tints on the mountains were beautiful to-night,—from almost black purple to the purest rose-colour; and there were some sudden and deep sounds from the eastward, that might have been the falls of avalanches, or the voice of some of the half-extinguished volcanoes in the neighbourhood.

Don Justo met us about a mile and a half from the house, and on our arrival at the door we found two strange cavaliers. One was E——, whose gay cheerful spirit makes him welcome every where. He introduced to us a man, dressed in the coarsest decent dress of the country, by the title of Juan de Bonaventura; a farmer on his own estate, and a good man, though unfortunately a tonto, i.e. a half-witted clown. When we entered the house, and I saw the tonto by the full light, I thought that nature does indeed sometimes play the huswife, in bestowing such a form and such features on one without a mind. However, we assembled and took tea, after having changed our riding dresses; and Mr. de Roos, Doña Rosario, and Don Lucas, formed one group on the ottoman in the corner, where Don Lucas’s guitar and songs made them very merry. Don Jose Antonio and Don Justo were not with us, Don Justo not being well. Doña Ana Maria and I, therefore, sat at the table, where she had her work and I my drawing, with E—— and the tonto. We talked of all manner of things, and now and then, from civility, I appealed to the handsome fool, whose answers were more like Shakspeare’s Touchstone than those of any fool I have met: and still I wondered at such a gracious outside, where “every god had seemed to set his seal,” coupled with so weak a mind. It made me quite melancholy, and I was glad to go to supper; where Don Lucas’s buffooneries furnished a natural laugh, while those forced by the tonto are melancholy; and I went to bed actually sad.

12th.—On rising to-day, I found that Don Lucas had set off, in the fog and rain, for the city, without taking leave of us; so adieu to our dancing. I employed the morning in writing up my journal, going into the dairy, and making enquiries concerning the tonto, 249 about whom I could receive no satisfaction. At twelve o’clock the mist cleared away; and in the afternoon Don Justo, Doña Ana Maria, Rosario, Mr. de Roos, and I, rode to a hill in the neighbourhood to see a lovely view over the plain of Maypu, and to take our matee and chat till sunset. I may repeat, a thousand times over, ’tis the loveliest day I have seen; for, in the fresh untouched scenes of nature, each succeeding one is lovelier than the last. The star-like flower beneath my feet, the magnificent purple shrub that bent over the cliff hundreds of feet above the nearest resting-place, and where Salinas clung like a wild roe as he grasped the splendid plant; the pinnacle on which the skins were spread, where Ana Maria and Rosario,—two creatures more lovely than the flowers about them,—reclined while the matee was brought in silver cups;—all, all were beautiful; and we talked till many a story of living people was told, that romancers would be glad to possess. Doña Ana Maria’s first husband was, as I knew long before, Juan Jose Carrera.⁕47 After his death, her brother Jose Antonio crossed the Andes to Mendoza, and brought her home to her family, where she lived for a time in utter seclusion. At nineteen years she had seen her husband at the head of the government of his country, or, at least, only second to his brother; she had twice followed him across the Andes as a fugitive; she had shared his prison; she had begged for him; she had seen him expire, locked in his youngest brother’s arms, on the scaffold;—what wonder that she was dear to the surviving Carrera! What wonder that he wrote to her in that confidential cipher which had nearly cost her her life! Some of his letters were intercepted; and she was imprisoned in the convent of the Augustine nuns in Santiago. But I will write down this part of her history, as nearly as I can, in the words of her mother, addressed to me some days ago:—“On Ana Maria’s return from Mendoza we found her health so impaired by her sufferings, that we hurried her into the country, whither poor Miguel and I accompanied her. I was speedily recalled to town on Mariquita’s 250 account, who had a very dangerous fever. On the very day of the crisis of her illness, an officer from the senate arrived, demanding our eldest daughter. My husband went to the Director, representing the wretched state of the family, and especially the delicate state of my Ana Maria. But he was told that it was an affair of state, and she must appear; so I left Mariquita with her sisters, and set off with the officer to fetch my daughter.

“We brought her to town; she was taken before the senate, and there the letter written by Jose Miguel was shown her⁕48, and she was desired to read it. She answered, that she did not know the cipher, and therefore could not. One of the court reminded her, that she had often used a cipher in her letters to her husband while he was imprisoned at Mendoza. She who, till then, had not heard her husband’s name without convulsions, now seemed inspired with courage from above. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we did occasionally write a line in cipher. Could we expose our intimate concerns to the strangers who, we knew, read our letters ere they reached us? Or could we bear the coarse laugh of the guard-room, where they were read, at the effusions of our tenderness? But when ye took from me the letters and papers of my martyred husband, ye took from me also the key of that cipher, and I know no other.’ One of the senators, looking sternly at the beautiful girl, said,—‘Does Doña Ana Maria choose to have the words martyred husband inserted into the minutes of her examination?’ She answered, ‘I have said, and I do say, martyred husband.’ The examiners then told her, that unless she read the letters in question to the council there assembled, she should be shut up in a convent. Her reply still was—‘I cannot, I know not the cipher. And if the letter were addressed to me, of which you have no proof, does another person’s act in addressing me make me a criminal? There are, alas! other women, and other widows of my name and family, to whom it might well have been 251 directed. Besides, if it be criminal to correspond, have you proof that I have written, or replied to, or any way acknowledged, the letters of Don Jose Miguel? Or is it wonderful, that in the desolation of his house, he should write to and condole with his martyred brother’s wife?’ She was that day questioned no farther, but sent to the Augustine nuns, whence she was twice led to be re-examined; but she never varied her answers. After this, her health becoming daily more delicate, her mother and youngest sister were allowed to attend her in the convent, which they did for five months.”—After which the Director himself caused her to be liberated, I believe at the instance of Mr. Prevost. Some persons consider her as really implicated in a state intrigue. Her family look on her as a suffering angel.

While she was confined in the convent, she became intimate with a most interesting young person, whose misfortunes, of a different cast from her own, had induced her to retire thither for life. Her husband had been won over from the patriot to the royal cause, at an age when principles can rarely be fixed;—he had been faithful to it. He was taken in battle, and imprisoned rather as a deserter than an honourable enemy. She, being at that time at Talcahuana, and near her first lying-in, resolved to join her husband; and so set out with one faithful female servant, on foot, and with so little money, as to be dependant for the greater part of the road, 500 miles, upon the hospitality of her countrymen; to whom her name, indeed, was not indifferent. She reached Santiago;—a relation received her kindly. She bore her infant, sending daily to the prison to know how her husband was, and had always an answer of comfort. One morning she heard a volley, and then another, of small arms—she was seized with a shivering: she enquired after her husband; she was told, “He is out of prison, and will never be molested more.” She asked no farther, but rose from her bed as soon as she was able, and retired to the Augustines. She was right,—he was shot that morning: his child had died. In her solitude she was sometimes visited by her friends, and her brother Justo Salinas was among the number. 252 Sometimes he saw with her Ana Maria, the widow of Carrera. The young naturally feel for the young. He heard her story,—as who in Chile did not?—and told it to his mother, an aged lady, who lived in the country, at the house we are now staying at.

When Doña Ana Maria was released from her honourable prison in the Augustines, she found her brother Don Miguel labouring under a severe infirmity; and as she was banished from Santiago, and ordered to live at the country-house she had inherited from her husband, she proposed that he should accompany her thither for the benefit of bathing in running water; which, I observe, is considered here as a specific for many complaints. Ana Maria’s tender attention to this brother attracted the observation of her neighbours, more especially of the lady of Salinas, who insisted on her removing to her house, where the waters were purer and the stream stronger. She accordingly accompanied Don Miguel to Salinas. Don Justo arrived some time after:—need I say she was invited to make Salinas hers? I am not sure that all this was talked or told to-night; but this discourse made out some parts of a story which I longed to know more completely, and which, even now, wants some links of the chain.

The sun at last summoned us to leave our mountain station; and we descended by a winding rocky path and through a wood, where the branches often threatened to impede our progress. On such occasions Salinas, who, like every Chileno, travels with his forest knife, drew it, and quickly cut the overhanging boughs; and we reached home just as E—— with his tonto again made his appearance at the door. The parties in the evening were much as last night; E—— and Jose Antonio occasionally taking Don Lucas’s place, with Doña Rosario, and Mr. de Roos. There was something in the tonto’s appearance to-night that led me to notice him more particularly than before; and I purposely led the conversation to points connected with farming, with the state of the roads in the country, and the practicability of going to Conception alone in a few weeks; and at length the answers became more and more rational, till I was half convinced that the tonto was an assumed character: when E—— came 253 up, and said something aloud, calling him by name, and the answer was so completely that of an idiot, that I turned to E—— to avoid more discourse with the unhappy creature. I spoke of Santiago and the Director, which I have not done here on account of Doña Ana Maria; and of the 18th of September, the approaching anniversary of the independence of the country; and asking him if he, as captain of militia, would not be on parade with the lancers, again I saw the tonto’s eyes fixed on me, with an intelligence and an expression that interested me anew, and I thought that perhaps his state of mind was owing to some misfortune sprung out of the civil war; so I talked on, and mentioned more especially the Director’s promise of backing any request to be made to the Assembly for a general amnesty for all persons held criminal for political opinions, and recal to all exiles. There was something in the faces of all that induced me to repeat this distinctly again; and then I went on with the drawing I was about, and E—— went away: I then heard the tonto speak about me in a whisper to Doña Ana Maria, who answered him in the same tone, and then she spoke to me; and the conversation led me to say to the tonto, “And why should not you, who live in the country and have your farm, be happy as any of us?” He answered quickly; and this time his voice and language corresponded with the dignity of his figure and his fine features—“I happy with farms, and peons, and cattle!—No! for years I was wretched, and the first moment of happiness I owe to you.”—“Indeed!” said I. “Then you are not what you seem?”—He started up and stretched himself to his full height, and his eye flashed fire.—“No,—I will no longer play this fool’s part; it is unworthy the son of Xabiera, the nephew of Jose Miguel Carrera. I am that unhappy exile Lastra, reduced to fly from desert to desert, to hide me in caves, and to feed with the fowls of the air, till my limbs are palsied and my youth is wasted; and my crime has been to love Chile too well. Oh, my country! what would I not suffer for thee!” I had been immoveable during this burst of feeling: but now I rose astonished, as I believe all present were; not indeed at the disclosure,—for only de Roos besides myself had any thing to 254 learn,—but at Lastra’s making it. However, I went up to him and gave him my hand, and desired he would come to see me in Santiago, like himself, after the 18th. This restored us to our ordinary state of cheerfulness, and the rest of the evening was occupied in giving and receiving details concerning the wanderer’s life. He had been taken in arms for Carrera, and imprisoned—and the prison in Chile is cruel. He had escaped, and was consequently outlawed. For years he has lived in the desert; now and then entering the town in the disguise of a common peon, to hear of his friends, or to obtain some assistance from them; sometimes living in villages where he was unknown; and then hastily escaping those who had discovered his retreat, and sought to betray him; and occasionally, as now, venturing from hiding-places in the woods at nightfall to sup with his friends, but retiring without sleeping. At one time he had been so long exposed to the damp in the rainy season, that he was laid up with rheumatism for two months in a cave; and had it not been for the fidelity of a little boy who brought him food daily, he must have perished: and this was the exile’s life. And thus years have passed of the life of one of the best educated, most accomplished young men in Chile! When we separated for the night, I felt sorry that we were to leave the hacienda of Salinas in the morning, without at this time knowing more of the tonto.⁕49

September 11th.—We left the hacienda of Salinas in a thick drizzling fog to ride to Melipilla, one of the chief towns of Chile, about twenty leagues from l’Angostura de Paine. We crossed the river at a beautiful spot, where the branch from the pass receives another equal in depth and clearness, and which I imagine to be the Paine itself. They meet in a little grassy plain, where there are some very fine timber trees scattered irregularly, and bounded to the north by the fences of the magnificent corn-fields of Viluco. The fog shut out all the mountains, and whatever is peculiar in the landscape of Chile; 255 so that the scene reminded me of some of those quiet rich views we have in the heart of England,—a few sheep grazing on the green banks, and cattle spotted like our Lancashire cows, added to the likeness. Coming suddenly to such a place gives one a feeling not unlike that of the sailors who found the broken spoon, marked “London,” in Kamschatka: I could scarcely persuade myself that I had not been often and familiarly at the place before.

Four leagues from the farm of Salinas lies the house of Viluca, which is one of the most remarkable in the country: it belongs to the Marques la Rayna, and is a princely establishment, kept in excellent order. The chaplain presides in the house, and there is always an establishment of servants; so that travellers are always welcomed, whether the master be there or not. There are a certain number of rooms appointed for their accommodation, and a table is kept for them; so that, known or unknown, the stranger is at home at Viluca. The house is good and substantial, and well furnished, though plainly for the country: the garden is a jewel in its kind; the walks and alleys are paved in mosaic; the parterres laid out in every fantastic shape, and each has its little run of water round it; the centre of each has also its pyramid, or urn, or basket, nicely clipped, of rosemary just in blossom; and all around wall-flowers, pinks, ranunculuses, and anemones: over-head, the orange, lime, lemon, and pomegranate, form a shade; and along by the house, birds of all kinds have their appropriate cages, with living plants within. This garden opens to a wide alley of trellis-work, over which vines are led as a shade; and on either hand are orchards of fruit trees and vineyards. From the gardens we went to see the granaries, the slaughter-houses, and the drying lofts for hides and charqui; which are all upon a grander scale, and more carefully kept, than any thing I have seen as yet. The cattle on this estate is computed at 9000 head; last year 2000 were killed, and the hides sold in one lot to an English merchant at twenty-two reals a piece. Some complaint is made that, since the beginning of the civil war, the number of cattle in Chile is greatly decreased, and the blame is laid on the war. The evil, so far as it is an evil, 256 may perhaps be justly charged on the war; but the waste in the management of the dairy and butchery is still such, that I think the number might bear a much further diminution without producing any distress,—nay, that the country would be benefited by it. In Padre Ovalle’s time, nothing but the tongues and ribs of their oxen were used; the rest was thrown into the sea on the coasts, or on the bone-heap in-land for the vultures. Even now the heads in some places, in all the bones, when the main part of the flesh is cut off, are thrown out, excepting where there are foreigners to make soup; the hearts and livers are also thrown away; so that nearly a quarter of the food which an ox would furnish in Europe is lost here, not to mention that the horns, hoofs, and bones are utterly wasted. But the war is not the only cause of the diminution of the number of the cattle;—a great deal more land is now brought into cultivation for corn; the people eat more bread; they have a large demand for the provisioning the foreign ships and fleets in the Pacific, and they export more grain; consequently more land is enclosed, and those who formerly derived their whole income from cattle have discovered that it is more profitable to grow a certain proportion of corn.

We had scarcely left Viluca when the day began to clear. I never beheld any thing finer than the gradual opening of the clouds, now rolling far below the summits of the mountains and seeming to fill up their valleys, and now curling over their tops and dispersing in the air. At a short distance from the house of Viluca we came to a ford of the Maypu, much more difficult than that we passed before. The gravelly bed of the river here spreads at the foot of a mountain nearly a mile, but the stream itself occupies but a small portion. We crossed six great branches; four of which took the horses to the girths, and one was so rapid that some of the animals were frightened, and began to give way; but the example of the rest encouraged them, and we crossed happily. Above and below the ford, where the stream is all in one, it is impossible to attempt crossing: a guide is quite necessary in travelling in Chile on account of the rivers, 257 which are very rapid, and whose fords are perpetually changing. About five leagues beyond the ford, we came to the beautiful village of Longuien, where the road lies between a mountain and two little knolls that project from it: the place is very populous, and seems thriving. The hills on both sides abound with projecting rocks, whose heads form platforms, each occupied by its cottage and garden; all the fences and ditches are in excellent order, and we even found well-hung gates. Through one of these we passed, and ascended the highest of the two knolls above mentioned, on the very summit of which is the house of Tagle, the first president of the convention: it is a mere country lodge, with some pretensions to taste; but it is chiefly delightful for its view, extending all over the rich valley through which the Maypu flows. On one hand lies the high ridge of the mountains of St. Michael; on the other, that of which Chocolan—stupendous, if the Andes were not in sight—is the highest peak. There is little corn in this part of the country, but that little is fine; and the vines and olives are few. The chief produce between this place and Melipilla being butter, cheese, hides, tallow, and charqui; the banks of the Maypu are entirely occupied by pasture lands. We sat nearly an hour at Longuien to rest our horses, and to eat a luncheon we had brought with us. While we were thus occupied, we saw in the fields below the whole business of the rodeo going on in a corral just beneath the house; the separating and marking the cattle, and taking up the calves from the mothers.

From Longuien to the town of San Francisco de Monte the road lies through a thicket of the espina or yellow scented mimosa, which affords not only the best fuel in the country, but shelter for the cattle, without injuring the quality of the grass beneath. Near San Francisco we crossed the Mapocho, after its re-appearance from the hills of St. Michael’s, on its way to join the Maypu; it really is a beautiful stream, and I do not wonder at the favour with which it is regarded on account of the sweetness, clearness, and lightness of its waters. A number of asequias or leads are taken from it here for 258 mills, for irrigation, and for drinking. About a league from San Francisco we passed the Indian village of Talagante, distinguished by its three beautiful palm trees, the first I had seen for a long time. It was one of the early settlements formed by the Franciscans, but was transferred to the management of the Jesuits, on whose fall the spiritual affairs of the Cacique and his people reverted to the Franciscans, and the temporal matters to the captain of the district. The most remarkable building on entering San Francisco is the house, formerly that of the Jesuits, now belonging to the Carreras, whose chief property lay in this district. We did not stop, though I was inclined to do so, in this pretty little town, as the day was far spent, and we had still several leagues to ride. The populous suburbs of San Francisco reached a long way, and the country improved in richness as we advanced. At Payco, about two leagues from Melipilla, there are some of the finest dairies in the country; and there I observed some remarkably fine forest trees by a little stream that, flowing across the road, enters an almost impervious thicket of molle, the sweet scent of which filled the evening air. We had now ridden fifty-four miles, and our horses as well as ourselves began to be a little eager to get to the end of our journey: the evening began to close, and a thick drizzling rain made our entrance to Melipilla as disagreeable as might be; and to mend the matter, the person on whom I had depended for lodging was absent. Cold, and hungry, and tired, we then had to seek a shelter. That was soon found; but the house was large, and cold, and empty. However the neighbours seemed willing to lend what accommodation they had; and, by the time Doña Rosario and I had made a seat of our travelling cloaks, we had a panful of coals, and hopes of a supper. Meantime, however, Don Jose Antonio had enquired out a more comfortable house, where we found fire ready, and were charmed by the appearance of an estrada, covered by a comfortable alfombra; on which we gladly sat, at the invitation of a pleasant-looking woman, and took matee while supper was preparing. The mistress apologised for the supper on the score 259 of the shortness of the time allowed for preparation, but our hunger would have relished a much worse; there was excellent roast beef, a stewed fowl, good bread, and a bottle of very tolerable wine. The beds appeared to embarrass Mr. de Roos more than any thing: but I am an old traveller, and our Chileno friends are used to the sort of thing; so my young Englishman made up his mind to our all passing the night within the same four walls. An excellent matrass, with all proper additions, was laid on one end of the estrada for Doña Rosario and me; and across the foot of our couch the skins and carpets of the saddles furnished forth Mr. de Roos, while another of the same kind served Don Antonio. I thought of the “Sentimental Journey,” and placed a parcel of high-backed chairs, and spread the long skirt of my riding-habit between Rosario and me and our companions,—a work of supererogation, if all slept as soundly as I did, which I presume they did, because when I rose at day-break I found them all still; so I crept into a little closet, where potatoes and wool had been kept, and where I had contrived a dressing-room; so that I was ready to receive two strangers, who walked into the room before any of the rest were stirring, and seating themselves without ceremony, began to question us about ourselves and our journey. I soon found that one of these was an Englishman, who had belonged to a whaler which foundered off Juan Fernandez. He is now at the head of a large soap and candle manufactory here, belonging to a gentleman of Chile. This is a favourable situation for such a business, both on account of the tallow, and of the facility of procuring ashes and charcoal: by-the-bye, I saw them making charcoal near Longuien. The pieces of wood are cut about two feet long, then laid in a trench covered with earth, and so burned. I suppose this to be a wasteful process. Were not the discouragement of all coasting trade so great here, Melipilla might be immensely rich: it is only ten leagues from the mouth of the Maypu, where there is the safe little harbour of Saint Augustin; where the cheese, butter, charqui, hides, tallow, soap, and earthenware might be shipped for every port of Chile. 260 But as it is, all these articles find their way by the expensive and circuitous in-land roads of Santiago, Casa Blanca, and Valparaiso. It is to be regretted, that the old Spanish principles still regulate all these things, to the great injury of foreign commerce and the utter destruction of internal traffic.

I fancy the Melipillans had never seen an Englishwoman before, the court of our house being absolutely crowded with men, women, and children; among whom I found that my close cap and black dress made me pass for a nun of some foreign order. I went out and spoke to them, and explained who I was, and we were soon relieved from all but those who insisted on staying to admire the rubio, (fair man,) as they called Mr. de Roos, whose golden locks and bright complexion are objects of universal admiration here. The fore-court of our lodging is surrounded by workmen’s sheds of different descriptions; so that when the family requires a job done, the workman and his tools are hired for the day or the week, and he finds his workshop fitted up. The back-court is open to a very good garden, and there the kitchen and other out-houses are situated. After breakfast we went out to see the town, which is built on the same plan as Santiago; that is, all the streets perfectly straight at right angles. Nearly in the centre is the Iglesia Matriz, on one side of a considerable square; another side is occupied by the house of the governor Don T. Valdez, and the barracks adjoining. The government house, like every other in the town, has a dull air; because towards the squares and streets, there is only a dead wall with a large gate, the house being within a court. And Melipilla is peculiarly sombre; because, excepting the public buildings, which are whitewashed, they are all of the natural colour of the clay of which the unburnt building-bricks are formed. Melipilla has still its annual bull-fights, which are held in the great square; but it has no other place of public amusement, not even a public walk. The church of St. Austin and that of the Merced are the only ones besides the great church; but there are a few private chapels belonging to the 261 principal houses in the town. Besides the manufactures of soap and earthenware, a great many of the finer kinds of ponchos and alfombras are wove; as the wool in the neighbourhood is very fine, and the plain abounds with drugs for dying. The weaving is managed with great skill, but the loom is the most clumsy I ever beheld; and most of the work is done without a shuttle at all.

In the evening we went to the chacra of Don Jose Funsalida, to see the pits whence the fine red clay used in the famous pottery of Melipilla is taken. Overlooking the plain eastward from the town, there is a long high perfectly flat bank of great extent; and there, under a layer about two feet thick of black vegetable mould, lies the red clay, almost as hard as stone. Of this the fine red water-jars, and the finest vessels for wine, as well as jars for cooking and many other uses, are made. The plain beyond the clay bank is covered with large ovens for baking the wine-jars, and alembics for distilling; not that there is any large manufactory for them, but every peasant here makes jars, and the richest and most skilful of course has most trade; and, of all the ovens we saw, not more than three belonged to any one man.

There is no difference between the method of pottery practised here and that at Valparaiso in making the coarsest ware, excepting that I think more pains is taken in kneading the clay. I went to one of the most famous female potters, and found her and her granddaughter busy polishing their work of the day before with a beautiful agate. There I saw the black clay of which they make small wares, such as matee-cups, waiters, and water-jars, often wrought with grotesque heads and arms, and sometimes ornamented with the white and red earths with which the country abounds. The large wine-jars and alembics are made by men, as the work is laborious; especially as no wheel is used, or indeed known, in the country. The small ware is still often baked in holes in the earth, the large vessels in ovens; where indeed they are often made, the workmen forming the jars where they are to be baked.

262

The furnace is built a little under-ground, yet so as to admit a free current of air; the flooring is about eight feet square, and the whole 18 feet high. These are of picturesque forms, and, scattered over the plain, gave me the idea of antique tombs: on one hand the river was flowing majestically past the town, and beyond it Chocolan, with light evening clouds hanging round its sides, and woods burning in different places near the summit; to the east the Andes, at about the same distance that Mont Blanc is from Geneva, are seen at the end of a long valley, whose boundary mountains sink into nothing before the “Giant of the Western Star.”

Shortly after we returned from our walk, some young women neatly dressed, with their long hair braided hanging down their backs, and natural flowers placed in it, came and seated themselves under the window and played on their guitars, singing at the same time some verses welcoming us to Melipilla. We then invited them to enter, and they sat with us till a late hour, singing ballads and tristes, and dancing various dances; the newest and most fashionable being the Patria, with suitable words not ill adapted to the times.

15th September.—This morning Doña Rosario and her brother went to early Mass, while Mr. de Roos and I prepared all things for beginning our journey back to Santiago. So we left Melipilla quite 263 satisfied, that, in its present state, there is little interesting in it; and also, that it might be one of the most flourishing cities of South America. Its potteries, already considerable, might be rendered infinitely more profitable; its manufactures of ponchos and carpets infinitely increased, because its wool and its dyes are excellent and inexhaustible. Hemp, of the very finest quality, abounds in the flat lands near it. Its dairies are the best in this part of Chile; and its charqui, hides, and all other produce depending on its cattle, might be, more easily as well as advantageously, disposed of from its port of St. Austin’s, only thirty miles off; to which every thing might go by water, though the rapidity of the stream would prevent boats from re-ascending the Maypu. Melipilla might derive another advantage, which is not mean in Chile, from the existence of the medicinal wells in its neighbourhood, at the spot where the Poangui falls into the Maypu. People crowd thither in the bathing season to be very uncomfortable in huts at the spot, while it would be very easy for the town of Melipilla to keep comfortable and well-supplied houses and baths for their accommodation. I have been told, that the waters of the Poangui are warm in the morning and cold at night. This is so contrary to experience and reason, that, as I have not tried them myself, I suspect that there is as great a mistake as in the case of the saltness of the lake of Aculeo. We had no intention this day of going farther than San Francisco de Monte, where there is a tolerable house for travellers, kept by an old servant of a relation of the Cotapos. As soon as we arrived there, the gentlemen rode off to visit a relation of our companions, while Doña Rosario and I remained to perform rather a more careful toilette than we had been able to do at Melipilla. The house we were in is, in all senses, a pulperia, combining the characters of a huckster’s shop and an alehouse. The host has some Indian and some African blood in his veins, and is a shrewd ingenious man. He has set up a proper loom for weaving ponchos, by which means he produces more work in a week than the weavers of Melipilla in a month. His wife spins and dyes the wool; and by this trade, and the profits of their shop, they earn a very decent livelihood. 264 As soon as I had changed my dress I went out to walk round the little town, which I found laid out with great neatness; and admired the gardens and fields, though I could perceive that San Francisco had once boasted inhabitants of a higher class than those I saw. The best houses are shut up, and there was an air of decay in their immediate neighbourhood. They did belong to the Carreras. The heiress, Doña Xaviera, is now living as an exile at Monte Video. I went towards the Plaça, where there are the church and convent of the Franciscans, and several extremely good houses. I was attracted by a great crowd at the door of one of these. The mounted guasos were standing by with their hats off, and every body seemed as if performing an act of devotion. I was a little astonished when I arrived at the centre of the crowd, to which every body made way for me, to find nine persons dancing, as the Spaniards say, con mucho compas. They were arranged like nine-pins, the centre one being a young boy dressed in a grotesque manner, who only changed his place occasionally with two others, one of whom had a guitar, the other a ravel. The height and size of limb of the dancers might have belonged to men, the apparel was female; and I thought I had been suddenly introduced to a tribe of Patagonian women, and enquired of a bystander whence they came, when I received the following information concerning the dancers and the dance.—When the Franciscans first began the conversion of the Indians in this part of Chile, they fixed their convent at Talagante, the village of the palms which we passed through the other day, their proselytes being the caciques of Talagante, Yupeo, and Chenigué. The good fathers found that the Indians were more easily brought over to a new faith, than weaned from certain superstitious practices belonging to their old idolatry; and the annual dance under the shade of the cinnamon, in honour of a preserving Power, they found it impossible to make them forget. They therefore permitted them to continue it; but it was to be performed within the convent walls, and in honour of Nuestra Senhora de la Merced, and each cacique in turn was to take upon him the expense of the feast. On the removal of the convent to its present station the dance was 265 allowed in the church; and the dancers, instead of painted bodies, and heads crowned with feathers, and bound with the fillet,—still thought holy,—are now clothed completely in women’s dresses, as fine as they can procure: and as the priests have much abridged the period of the solemnity, they are fain to finish their dance in the area before the church, where they are attended with as much deference as in the temple itself. After having performed this duty, the dancers, and as many as choose to accompany them, repair to the Cacique’s house, where they are treated with all the food he can command, and drink till his stock of chicha is exhausted. I considered myself very fortunate in having met with these dancers, and pleased myself with the idea that they were the descendants of the Promaucians, who had resisted the Incas in their endeavours to subdue the country, and who, after bravely disputing its possession with the Spaniards, being once induced to make a league with them never deserted them.

I was lucky too in the person to whom I applied for information. He is a deformed, but sprightly-looking man, who acts the double part of schoolmaster and gracioso of the village. While we sat at dinner to-day he entered to pay his compliments, and began a long extempore compliment to each of us in verse, in a manner at least as good as that of the common improvisatori of Italy. For this I paid him with a cup of wine; when he began to recite a collection of legendary and other verses, till, heated I presume by the glasses handed to him by our young men, his tales began to stray so far from decorum that we silenced the old gentleman, and sent him to get a good dinner with the peons.

Mr. de Roos and I had a great wish to have gone to the Cacique of Chenigué, to see even at a distance the triennial feast; but we found it was too far to walk, and we could not think of taking out the horses, who had to travel onward in the morning to Santiago; we therefore were forced to content ourselves with a visit to the Cacique of Yupeo, whose village joins San Francisco de Monte. We found that His Majesty—must I call him?—was absent, probably at the feast at Chenigué. His wife received us very kindly: she is a 266 fine-looking intelligent woman; and when we entered, she was sitting on the estrada with a friend and one of her daughters, while another, a most beautiful girl, was kneading bread. The house is of the simplest description of straw ranchos, though large and commodious. The gardens and fields behind it are beautiful, and in the highest order, maintained by the labour of the Cacique, his two sons, and his Indians; over whom he still exercises a nominal jurisdiction, and possesses the authority of opinion, not less powerful here than in more civilised nations. As the land is all supposed to be his of right, he receives a small voluntary contribution in produce, by way of acknowledgment, for each field. Two-thirds of his village have been taken from him during the two last generations; so that now the Cacique is but a shadow. He talks of going, attended by a score of his best men, to the capital, to talk face to face with the Director, and to free himself from the interference of the commandants of districts, who vex him in every way. There is no difference whatever between the language, habits, or dress of these Indians, and other Chilenos,—a few customs only distinguish them; so completely have they assimilated with their invaders, who, on the other hand, have borrowed many of their usages.

On our return from the Cacique’s, where our visit was acknowledged as a favour, and much regret that he himself had missed the opportunity of receiving English people in his house, and showing us how he had improved it⁕50, we entered another Indian cottage, to return a staff which the mistress of it had kindly lent us to assist in crossing a muddy pool on the road. There we found a woman very ill with ague, and another consumptive; and I learn that these complaints are common, owing to the undrained marshes below the town. I should think the mud floors and the straw walls of the cottages, which cannot keep out the keen frosty winds from the Andes, must be equally injurious.

In the evening, Doña Dolores Ureta and her very pleasing daughters 267 came to visit us. It was to this lady’s house that the young men had ridden in the morning. She apologised for her husband’s absence, on account of a severe indisposition. I have seldom seen a more pleasing ladylike woman, and her daughters are quite worthy of her. I was really glad of her presence, and the countenance I derived from it in my lodging. It being Sunday night, the principal room, which I thought was ours, filled with persons of all classes and sexes, and the usual amusements began. First, the gracioso, with his staff in the middle of the floor, performed a number of antics, and made speeches to every person present. He then sent for his harp, and played, while all manner of persons danced all sorts of dances. Doña Rosario and I, seated on our bed, with our visitors by us, saw as much or as little as we pleased of the holiday evening of a pulperia. These scenes, however, are only delightful in description. Le Sage, or Smollet, might have woven a charming chapter out of Doña Josefa’s inn; but, like certain Dutch pictures, the charm is in the skill of the representation, not the scenes themselves. I was really sorry when Doña Dolores left us; but I believe the company took it as a hint to depart, for we saw no more of them. Shortly after we had seen the ladies to their carriage, we discovered that a large house in the neighbourhood was on fire, and thither every body flocked: the night was intensely cold; and as soon as I had heard that there were no inhabitants to be injured by the conflagration, I returned to the house, having a slight pain in my side.

⁕50 He has actually made windows in it.

16th Sept.—We left San Francisco by Talagante, intending to go close by the mountain of San Miguel, to the farm where the new Mapocho comes by several copious springs from under-ground. We stopped at the Cacique’s to pay our compliments, and bought some small jars and platters of red clay, ornamented with streaks of earth, to which iron pyrites give the appearance of gold dust. Talagante is a very populous village, and the women at every hut appear to be potters. The men are soldiers, sailors, carriers, and some few husbandmen; a fine, handsome, that is, well-made race, with faces very 268 Indian. We had scarcely left it a league, when I was obliged to lag a little behind the party by a violent cough, and then I broke a small blood-vessel.⁕51 It was some time before I could rejoin my friends; and then there was great consternation among them, as we were at least ten leagues from home. I proposed to them to ride on, and leave me to proceed slowly with the peon: this they refused to do; and the hemorrhage increasing, I felt pleased that they remained with me. I had nothing with me to stop the bleeding, and I longed for water; on which Don Jose Antonio recollecting a spring not far off, he and Mr. de Roos rode off to it, and filling the little jars we had brought with us, we put some orange-peel into it, and whenever the cough returned I took a mouthful. I found I dared not speak, nor ride fast; so at a foot’s pace we went on to Santiago. I had two very serious attacks before I reached the city, but, on the whole, I cannot say I suffered much; it was a delightful day, and the scenery was beautiful and grand. We crossed the plain of Maypu farther to the westward, and nearer the scene of the great action than before. The ground was covered with flowers, and flocks of birds were collected round them. I thought if it were to be my last ride out among the works of God, it was one to sooth and comfort me; and I did not feel at all depressed. I may think, with more ease than most, of my end, detached as I now am from all kindred.

A few miles before we reached home Mr. De Roos rode on, and having told Doña Carmen what had happened, she ordered my maid to have fire, warm water, and my bed prepared. Mr. De Roos also found Dr. Craig, who came immediately, and as I was almost without fever and very well disposed to sleep soundly, the accident of the day promised to be of little consequence.

⁕51 I was the more vexed at the accident, as it prevented my seeing the coming out of the Mapocho, if it be indeed that river.

17th.—Letters from Valparaiso announce the arrival of the Doris, and that my poor cousin Glennie has taken possession of my house, being in a state of health that gives little hope of his recovery. He 269 broke a blood-vessel in consequence of over-exertion at Callao, and is obliged to invalid, as the surgeon thinks the voyage round the Horn, whither the ship is bound, would be fatal. It is very distressing to me not to be able to go instantly to Valparaiso to receive him, but I am confined to bed myself. I have also kind letters from Lord Cochrane, enclosing an introduction to General Freire, in case I should ride down to Conception, as I intended, from hence: but proposing the better plan of going by sea in the Montezuma, when His Lordship himself goes. Alas! I can do neither; and I fear I must give up my hopes of visiting Peru, as well as going to the south of Chile. My own slight illness I should think nothing of, but the poor invalid at Valparaiso must have all my time and attention.

18th.—The anniversary of the independence of Chile. The first thing I heard after a long sleepless night was the trampling of horses; and I got out of bed and went to the balcony, whence I saw the country militia going to the ground where the Director is to review them all. They are in number about 2000; armed with lances, twenty feet long, of cane, headed with iron. The men are dressed in their ordinary dress, with military caps and scarlet ponchos; and the different divisions are distinguished by borders or collars, or some other trivial mark. I have heard many jests upon the discipline of the red cloaks; but B., who knows them well, says, “True, they may on parade mistake eyes right for eyes left, but at the battle of Maypu they never mistook the enemy;” and, in truth, on that day, when the regular troops had begun to give ground, they are said to have turned the fortune of the day. They are admirable horsemen, as indeed every country-bred Chileno is. They ride like centaurs, seeming to make but one person with their horse; and I have seen them wrestle and fight on horseback as if they had been on foot. I was glad the Casa Cotapo stands so directly in the way of the exercising ground. The only compensation I can have for not being present at the national rejoicing is the seeing the troops pass. I 270 thought of young Lastra, and am charmed to learn that the decree of amnesty has this day passed, which will restore him and many others to their families.

To day the bishop performed Mass in the cathedral, for the first time since his restoration. The ladies have been visiting and complimenting each other; and the streets, both last night and to-night, were illuminated. I felt low and ill all day.

21st of Sept.—The good-natured inhabitants of Santiago have all testified, in some way or other, their sympathy with my sufferings; from the Director, who sent M. De la Salle with a very kind letter, in his own name and that of the ladies, to the poor nuns I had visited, who sent me a plate of excellent custard, made according to one of their own private recipes. Reyes has been constant in his visits, and has procured me a plan of the city, and an account of the most remarkable indigenous trees, with permission to copy both.

24th.—I have been better, and am much worse. My friend Mr. Dance, from the Doris, arrived the day before yesterday with letters from every body on board, and a better account of poor Glennie. Mr. B—— has interested himself to procure a comfortable caleche for me to travel to the port, as I am anxious to get home, and am not able to think of riding thither. Nothing can be more truly kind than Doña Carmen de Cotapos and all her daughters, since I first became their guest, and especially since my illness. Mr. Prevost too has been unwearied in his friendly attentions; but what can I say of my good and skilful physician Dr. Craig, that can acknowledge my obligations sufficiently? As to my own sea friends, their affectionate care is only what I depended on.

I have been grieved since I came back from Melipilla by the state of a beautiful and amiable girl, which has arisen from a misunderstood spirit of devotion. Before I went away she was gay and cheerful, the delight of her father’s house. Her music and her poetry, and her reading aloud while others worked, formed the charm of her home. But her mother, though a clever woman, is a bigot; and 271 Maria’s mind, of a high and lofty nature, is peculiarly susceptible of religious impressions. Under these, the tender-conscienced girl, to punish herself for an attachment not favoured by her house, which she still felt, though at her parents’ bidding she had given up its object, resolved to go for ten days to a Casa de Exercisio. There, under the guidance of an old priest, the young creatures who retire thus are kept praying night and day, with so little food and sleep that their bodies and minds alike become weakened. All the intervals between the Masses, which are of the most lugubrious chants, are passed in silence; no voice is heard above a whisper, and the light of heaven is scarcely admitted. A young married woman who went in with Maria came out even gayer than she entered; doubtless her heart had rested on her husband and their home. But what was to occupy the thoughts and affections of the girl whose best feelings were to be crushed? Could she harbour there

And she has returned as it were to earth,—on it, but not of it. The sight of friends throws her into fits of hysterical weeping; and, only prostrate before the altar, and repeating the Masses of her house of woe, does she seem soothed or calmed. Such are the effects of the house of exercise. I might have thought that my young friend’s peculiar disposition alone had caused this; but I know a youth who was, I am told, once all that parents could wish,—accomplished and enlightened, and possessed of honour and spirit. He is now little better than a drivelling idiot. He went into a house of exercise a man,—he came out of it what he is. Oh! if I had power or influence here, I would put down these mischievous establishments. Even when they do not cause, as in this instance, a derangement of the intellect, they are nurseries of bigotry and fanaticism. To have been in one is a source of vanity, to conform to the sentiments inculcated there a point of conscience; and as it is easier to be a bigot than a virtuous man, great laxity of conduct is permitted, so the spirit 272 is bent to maintain the church, and to persecute, or at least keep down, those who are not of it.

It was not without regret that on the 28th September I left Santiago, where I have been so kindly received, and where there is still much new and interesting to see. I do hope to return in summer, when I mean to cross the mountain by the Cumbre pass⁕52, visit Mendoza, and return by the pass of San Juan de los Patos; by which the great body of San Martin’s army entered the country in 1816. However, in the meantime I must gain a little more health, and a great deal more strength. I am scarcely sorry that I was obliged to travel in a caleche for once. All our party assembled after passing the toll-house, and other necessary ceremonies at the house of Loyola, the owner of the caleche, about a league from Santiago, on the plain called the Llomas; and then, sick as I felt, I could not help laughing at the “set out.” In the first place, there was the calisa, a very light square body of a carriage, mounted on a coarse heavy axle, and two clumsy wheels painted red, while the body is sprigged and flowered like a furniture chintz, lined with old yellow and red Chinese silk, without glasses, but having striped gingham curtains. Between the shafts, of the size and shape of those of a dung-cart, was a fine mule, not without silver studs among her trappings, mounted by a handsome lad in a poncho, and armed with spurs whose rowels were bigger than a dollar, and with a little straw hat stuck on one side. On each side of the mule was a horse, fastened to the axle of the wheel, each with his rider, also in full Chile costume. Then there was Loyola’s son as a guide, handsomely dressed in a full guaso dress, mounted on a fine horse: with him Mr. Dance and Mr. Candler, of the Doris, also in the same dress; my young friend de Roos having left us some days before on the expiration of his leave of absence. Last, though by no means least, in his own esteem, was my peon Felipe, with his three mules and the baggage, accompanied by another peon 273 with the relay horses for the calisa. When seated in the chaise I observed how the horses were harnessed. A stout iron ring is fixed to the saddle, and a thong passes from the axle-tree to that ring, so that it serves as a single trace, by which the horse drags his portion of the weight on one side. Occasionally they change sides, to relieve the cattle. On going down any little declivity the horses keep wide of the carriage, so as to support it a little; and on descending a mountain they are removed from the front, and the thongs are brought backward from the axle-trees and fastened to rings in the fore part of the saddles; and the horses serve not only instead of clogs to the wheels, but support part of the weight, which might otherwise overpower the mule in the descent. The season is considerably advanced since we went to the city; the plains are thickly and richly covered with grass and flowers; the village orchards are in full leaf and blossom, and the pruning of the vines is begun. The horses, and other animals, are once more sent into the potreros to grass, and spring comes to all but me. Mine is past, and my summer has been blighted; yet hope, blessed hope! remains, that the autumn of my days may at least be more tranquil.

I suffered a great deal the two first days on the road, but the third I felt sensibly better, and fancied myself almost well; when, at the first post-house from Valparaiso, I found Captain Spencer, with half-a-dozen of my young shipmates, whom he had good naturedly brought out to meet me, and among them poor Glennie. We all made a cheerful luncheon together, and then rode to Valparaiso; my maid mounting her horse, and Glennie taking her place in the calisa.

At home I found Mr. Hogan, and several other friends, waiting to welcome me. And truly I have seldom enjoyed rest so much as this night, when both mind and body reposed, as they have not done since I knew of Glennie’s arrival in bad health.

⁕52 The barometer gives 12,000 feet as the greatest height of the pass at the foot of the volcano of Aconcagua, where that river flows to the west, and that of Mendoza to the east.

October 1st.—I find that the affairs of the squadron are much worse than when I left the port: the wages are yet unpaid, and the crews of the ships are becoming clamorous for money, for clothing, and all other necessaries. Discontent is spreading wide, and, as usual, 274 directed against every object and every person, with or without reason. Even Lord Cochrane, after all his exertions and sacrifices both for the state and the squadron, has been made the object of a malicious calumny, which, indeed, he has condescended to disprove most convincingly; but which is, nevertheless, mortifying, as coming directly from individuals who have been benefited and trusted by him and the country they serve. This calumny charges him with having made a private advantageous bargain for himself, and having already received from the government the greater part of the money destined for the pay of the whole squadron. I have been much pleased by a letter written to him by the lieutenants of the squadron on the occasion, dated only yesterday, and of which a copy has been obligingly given me by one of those signing it.

275

The reports alluded to, though apparently caused by the thoughtlessness of an indifferent person, tend so directly to the accomplishment of the ends of a certain party in the state, that one cannot help connecting them. The jealousy entertained against the Admiral by those whose genius quails before his, strengthened by the suspicions to which foreigners are universally exposed, is now more at liberty to rage, because the great object of destroying the mother country’s maritime power in the Pacific is accomplished. And this jealousy has been ingeniously fostered by subordinate persons, interested in getting rid of what has been felt to be an English interest here, particularly by some of the agents of the United States, who have made common cause with San Martin and his agents. Could the creatures of this party separate Lord Cochrane from the squadron in any way, their great object would be easily accomplished; and for this end the present juncture is favourable. The sufferings and poverty of the squadron in general are hard to bear; and to make the officers and men believe that the Admiral had made a favourable arrangement for himself, neglecting them, was a direct means of destroying that confidence and union which has constituted hitherto the strength of the squadron. For this time the design has failed; but who can say how long the present calm may last?

2d.—As my own health is far from being strong, and my poor invalid requires every moment’s attendance, I cannot go out in search of news, therefore I take it all at once as it is brought to me; and to-day I have been almost overwhelmed with details about the new regulations of trade, the taxes to be laid on, and the monopolies of the minister Rodriguez, and his partner Arcas. In addition to the spirits and tobaccos they long ago purchased with the government money, they have now bought up the cottons, cloths, and other articles of clothing, and only their own agents or pulperie-men are able to procure such for any customer. This, added to the want of a small coin, and the use of notes for tbree-pences, only payable, or rather exchangeable, for goods from their own shops, is a severe grievance, and will, of course, at once retard civilisation and rob the revenue; 276 for it will drive the people back to their habits of wearing nothing but their household stuffs, and thereby afford less leisure for agriculture, thence less food, and consequently check the now increasing population; at the same time that, by discouraging the use of foreign stuffs, the import duties must fail. Are nations like individuals, who never profit by each other’s experience? and must each state have its dark age?

I have received many visits in the course of the day to congratulate me on my return, the most and the kindest from my naval friends; and I am particularly flattered by Lord Cochrane’s coming with Captains Wilkinson and Crosbie, and Mr. H. E. to tea. Before I could give it to them, an incident truly characteristic happened: we were obliged to wait while a man went to catch a cow with the laça on the hill, to procure milk. After what I had seen of the management of the dairy at M. Salinas’, I could not wonder, and had nothing to do but sit patiently till the milk arrived, and my guests being older inhabitants of the country than I am, were equally resigned; and the interval was filled with pleasant conversation.

6th.—The exorbitant duties, not yet formally imposed but announced, on various English goods, have induced Capt. Vernon, of H. M. ship Doris, to go to Santiago; and, if possible, procure some mitigation of the duties, or at least a less vexatious regulation with regard to the manifesto. I wish our government would acknowledge the independence of the states of South America at once; and send proper consuls or agents to guard our trade, and to take from it the disgrace of being little else than smuggling on a larger scale. How easily might it have been settled, for instance, that the brute metals of this country should be legal returns for the manufactured goods of Europe, India, and China; instead of, as now, subjecting them to all the losses and risks of smuggling: for, as they are the only returns the country can make to Europe, they will find their way thither; and the attempt to confine them is as absurd as that ancient law of Athens which forbade the selling of the figs of Attica, lest 277 a stranger should buy and eat of what was too delicious for any but an Athenian palate.

This new reglamento is not the only point on which some state ferment seems about to arise. The Director had appointed General Cruz to supersede General Freire as governor of Talcahuana and chief of the army of the south; but the soldiers have refused to receive him, or to permit Freire to leave them, and are become as clamorous for their pay as the sailors are. Some politicians here do not scruple to attribute ambitious thoughts to Freire, and to accuse him of being the instigator of the clamours of the soldiers: but the true cause is in the bad faith of the government in refusing to pay up their arrears; in neglecting to provide any compensation for the sufferings and losses of the people of Conception, who have undergone more than those of any other province during the war of the Revolution; and in tyrannically attempting to ruin every port in Chile but that of Valparaiso, for the sake of monopolising the commerce of the country.

As to the squadron, the men talk of seizing the ships if they are not paid forthwith; and it is given out that their officers will stand by them. But these reports are built rather on the provocations to take the law into their own hands, than on any expressions of the parties themselves.

8th.—My pleasure in receiving the visits of several of my friends to-day, has been sadly damped by the increased sufferings of poor Glennie. These sufferings have met with sympathy however, if not relief, in a quarter from which I scarcely looked for it; namely, from La Chavelita, the old lady of the flower-garden, who appeared about four o’clock with a bundle of herbs, carried by a little serving boy, and stalking into the room with great dignity, her tall figure rendered still taller by a high-crowned black hat, she seated herself by the bedside, and began to question the patient as to his disease: she then turned to me, and told me she had brought some medicines, one of which she would administer immediately; and in order to prepare it desired me to procure some warm brandy. This being done, she 278 produced from her leathern pocket a piece of cocoa grease, and dipping it into the brandy, began to anoint G.’s shoulders with it, harangueing all the time on the intimate connection between the shoulders and the lungs, and saying that whoever wished to cure the latter should begin by cooling the former. Having operated for a quarter of an hour, she suffered the patient to lie down; and taking a bundle of cachanlangue (herb centaury) from the boy, desired me to infuse half of it in boiling water, and give the tea occasionally; and the other half was to be placed in a glass of spirits, and the shoulders to be occasionally whipped with it. She assured me that the pulse would go down and the hemorrhage cease by degrees, by constant use of the herb. She also gave me a bundle of wild carrot, of which she directed me to make a tisane, well sweetened, to be drank occasionally, and then, having given a history of similar cases cured by her prescriptions, to which she sometimes adds an infusion of the leaves of vinagrillo (yellow wood-sorrel, with a thick fleshy leaf), she took leave.

9th.—One cannot attend to private concerns two days together. This morning I learn that the squadron is in such a state from want, that a delegate has been sent to the supreme government; and that the captains serving in the Chileno ships have addressed a serious letter to it, setting forth their claims, their sufferings, and the injustice done them.⁕53 In other respects, things are quieter; and it seems as if patience were allowing time for the effect of the remonstrances.

Lord Cochrane and Captain Crosbie came in the evening; and as we never talk politics while drinking tea and eating bread and honey, we had at least one pleasant hour without thinking of governments, or mutinies, or injustice of any kind,—a rare blessing here, when two or three are together. There are so few people here, and all those are so directly interested in these matters, that it is not 279 wonderful nothing else should be talked of; but I, who am only a passenger, sometimes sigh for what I enjoyed this evening—a little rational conversation on more general topics.

Captain Vernon returned this night with a copy of the reglamento in his pocket. I hear it is so inconsistent, that it will defeat its own purpose.

⁕53 See Appendix for this remonstrance, communicated to me shortly after it was forwarded to government by one of the captains; and also for the letter on the same subject addressed to the Admiral by the lieutenants of the squadron.

13th.—Every one has been electrified to-day by the sudden arrival of General San Martin, the Protector of Peru, in this port. Since the forcible expulsion of his minister and favourite, Monteagudo, from office by the people of Lima⁕54, while he himself was absent visiting Bolivar at Guayaquil, he had felt some alarm concerning his own security; and had, it is believed, from time to time deposited considerable sums on board of the Pueyrredon, in case of the worst. At length, at midnight on the 20th September, he embarked, and ordered the captain to get under weigh instantly, although the vessel was not half manned, and had scarcely any water on board. He then ran down to Ancon, whence he despatched a messenger to Lima, and his impatience could scarcely brook the necessary delay before an answer could arrive: when it did come, he ordered the captain instantly to sail for Valparaiso; and now gives out here, that a rheumatic pain in one of his arms obliges him to have recourse to the baths of Cauquenes. If true, “’tis strange, ’tis passing strange.”

⁕54 25th July, 1822.

14th.—Reports arrive this morning that San Martin has been arrested; and that having endeavoured to smuggle a quantity of gold, it is seized.

Noon.—So far from San Martin being arrested, two of the Director’s aides-de-camp have arrived to pay him compliments,—besides, the fort saluted his flag.

Many persons, knowing Lord Cochrane’s sentiments with regard to the General, and that he looks on him both as a traitor to Chile and a dishonest man, made little doubt but that His Lordship would arrest him. Had he done so, I think the government would have 280 gladly acquiesced. But the uprightness and delicacy of Lord Cochrane’s feelings have induced him to leave him to the government itself.

Night.—The Director’s carriage is arrived to convey San Martin to the city; General Priete and Major O’Carrol are also in attendance; and there are four orderlies appointed, who are never to lose sight of him. Some think by way of keeping him in honourable arrest, others, and I am inclined to be of the number, that real or affected fear for his life, while in the port, occasions the constant attendance of such a train. The General himself persists in saying that his visit to Chile is solely on account of his rheumatic arm, and at first sight it seems hard not to allow a man credit for knowing the motives of his own actions. But one of the penalties of conspicuous station is to be judged by others.

15th of October.—After a very busy day spent in seeing and taking leave of my friends of the Doris, who are to sail to-morrow, I was surprised, just as I had taken leave of the last, at being told that a great company was approaching. I had scarcely time to look up before I perceived Zenteno, the governor of Valparaiso, ushering in a very tall fine-looking man, dressed in plain black clothes, whom he announced as General San Martin. They were followed by Madame Zenteno and her step-daughter, Doña Dolores, Colonel D’Albe and his wife and sister, General Priete, Major O’Carrol, Captain Torres, who I believe is captain of the port here, and two other gentlemen whom I do not know. It was not easy to arrange the seats of such a company in a room scarcely sixteen feet square, and lumbered with books and other things necessary to the comfort of an European woman. At length, however, my occupation of much serving, being over, I could sit, and observe, and listen. San Martin’s eye has a peculiarity in it that I never saw before but once, and that once was in the head of a celebrated lady. 281 It is dark and fine, but restless; it never seemed to fix for above a moment, but that moment expressed every thing. His countenance is decidedly handsome, sparkling, and intelligent; but not open. His manner of speaking quick, but often obscure, with a few tricks and by-words; but a great flow of language, and a readiness to talk on all subjects.

I am not fond of recording even the topics of private conversation, which I think ought always to be sacred. But San Martin is not a private man; and besides, the subjects were general, not personal. We spoke of government; and there I think his ideas are far from being either clear or decisive. There seems a timidity of intellect, which prevents the daring to give freedom and the daring to be despotic alike. The wish to enjoy the reputation of a liberator and the will to be a tyrant are strangely contrasted in his discourse. He has not read much, nor is his genius of that stamp that can go alone. Accordingly, he continually quoted authors whom he evidently knew but by halves, and of the half he knew he appeared to me to mistake the spirit. When we spoke of religion, and Zenteno joined in the discourse, he talked much of philosophy; and both those gentlemen seemed to think that philosophy consisted in leaving religion to the priests and to the vulgar, as a state-machine, while the wise man would laugh alike at the monk, the protestant, and the deist. Well does Bacon say, “None deny there is a God but those for whom it maketh that there were no God;” and truly, when I consider his actions, I feel that he should be an atheist if he would avoid despair. But I am probably too severe on San Martin. His natural shrewd sense must have led him to perceive the absurdity of the Roman Catholic superstitions, which here are naked in their ugliness, not glossed over with the pomp and elegance of Italy; and which from state policy he has often joined in with all outward demonstrations of respect: and it has been observed, that “The Roman Catholic system is shaken off with much greater difficulty than those which are taught in the reformed churches; but when it loses its hold of the mind, it much more frequently prepares the way for unlimited 282 scepticism.” And this appears to me to be exactly the state of San Martin’s mind. From religion, and the changes it has undergone from corruptions and from reformations, the transition was easy to political revolutions. The reading of all South American reformers is mostly in a French channel; and the age of Louis XIV. was talked of as the direct and only cause of the French revolution, and consequently of those in South America. A slight compliment was thrown in to King William before I had ventured to observe, that perhaps the former evils and present good of these countries might in part be traced to the wars of Charles V. and his successor, draining these provinces of money, and returning nothing. A great deal more passed, ending in a reference to that advance of intellect in Europe which in a single age had produced the invention of printing, the discovery of America, and begun that reformation that had bettered even the practice of Rome herself. Zenteno, glad to attack Rome, and to show his reading, exclaimed, “And well did her practice need reform; for she would have crowned Tasso, and did crown Petrarch, but imprisoned Gallileo.” Thus taking the converse of Foscolo’s true and admirable doctrine,—that the exact sciences may become the instruments of tyranny; but never poetry, or history, or oratory. I was glad of the interruption afforded by the entrance of tea to this somewhat pedantic discourse, which I never should have made a note of but that it was San Martin’s. I apologised for having no matee to offer; but I found that both the General and Zenteno drank tea without milk, with their segars in preference. But the interruption even of tea, stopped San Martin but for a short time. Resuming the discourse, he talked of physic, of language, of climate, of diseases, and that not delicately; and lastly, of antiquities, especially those of Peru; and told some very marvellous stories of the perfect preservation of some whole families of ancient Caciques and Incas who had buried themselves alive on the Spanish invasion: and this brought us to far the most interesting part of his discourse,—his own leaving Lima. He told me, that, resolved to know whether the people were really happy, he used to 283 disguise himself in a common dress, and, like the caliph Haroun Alraschid, to mingle in the coffee-houses, and in the gossipping parties at the shop doors; that he often heard himself spoken of; and gave me to understand, that he had found that the people were now happy enough to do without him; and said that, after the active life he had led, he began to wish for rest; that he had withdrawn from public life, satisfied that his part was accomplished, and that he had only brought with him the flag of Pizarro, the banner under which the empire of the Incas had been conquered, and which had been displayed in every war, not only those between the Spaniards and Peruvians, but those of the rival Spanish chiefs. “Its possession” said he, “has always been considered the mark of power and authority; I have it now;” and he drew himself up to his full height, and looked round him with a most imperial air. Nothing so characteristic as this passed during the whole four hours the Protector remained with me. It was the only moment in which he was himself. The rest was partly an habitual talking on all subjects, to dazzle the less understanding; and partly the impatience to be first, even in common conversation, which his long habit of command has given him. I pass over the compliments he paid me, somewhat too profusely for the occasion; but of such we may say, as Johnson did of affectation, that they are excusable, because they proceed from the laudable desire of pleasing. Indeed, his whole manner was most courteous: I could not but observe, that his movements as well as his person are graceful; and I can well believe what I have heard, that in a ball-room he has few superiors. Of the other persons present, Colonel d’Albe and the ladies only volunteered a few words. It was with difficulty that, in my endeavours to be polite to all, I forced a syllable now and then from the other gentlemen. They seemed as if afraid to commit themselves; so at length I left them alone, and the whole discourse soon fell into the Protector’s hands.

Upon the whole, the visit of this evening has not impressed me much in favour of San Martin. His views are narrow, and I think selfish. His philosophy, as he calls it, and his religion, are upon 284 a par; both are too openly used as mere masks to impose on the world; and, indeed, they are so worn as that they would not impose on any people but those he has unhappily had to rule. He certainly has no genius; but he has some talents, with no learning, and little general knowledge. Of that little, however, he has the dexterity to make a great deal of use; nobody possesses more of that most useful talent, “l’art de se faire valoir.” His fine person, his air of superiority, and that suavity of manner which has so long enabled him to lead others, give him very decided advantages. He understands English, and speaks French tolerably; and I know no person with whom it might be pleasanter to pass half an hour: but the want of heart, and the want of candour, which are evident even in conversation of any length, would never do for intimacy, far less for friendship.

At nine o’clock the party left me, much pleased certainly at having seen one of the most remarkable men in South America; and I think that, perhaps, in the time, I saw as much of him as was possible. He aims at universality, in imitation of Napoleon; who had, I have heard, something of that weakness, and whom he is always talking of as his model, or rather rival.⁕55 I think too that he had a mind to exhibit himself to me as a stranger; or Zenteno might have suggested, that even the little additional fame that my report of him could give was worth the trouble of seeking. The fact certainly is, that he did talk to-night for display.

⁕55 In his closet at Mendoza, his own portrait was placed between those of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington.

16th.—I have lost this day all my best known friends. Captain Spencer is gone to Buenos Ayres across the Andes: the Doris has sailed for Rio de Janeiro; and I feel her departure the more, from the situation of my poor invalid. Of all who once made that ship interesting to me, none but poor G. remains with me; and of the rest how probable it is that I may have lost sight of most of them for life!

17th.—Mr. Clarke called on his way to the city, and brought me San Martin’s farewell to Peru. It is as follows:—

285

If there be any thing real in this, if he really retires and troubles the world no more, he will merit at least such praise as was bestowed on

For indeed he has not “held his faculties meekly;” but yet he has done something for the good cause;—and oh! had the means been 286 righteous as the cause, he would have been the very first of his countrymen: but there is blood on his hands; there is the charge of treachery on his heart.

He is this day gone to Cauquenes, and has left the port not one whit enlightened as to the cause of his leaving Peru. It is probably like the retirement of Monteagudo, a sacrifice of his political existence in order to save his natural life.⁕56

I think Lord Cochrane went either to day or yesterday to Quintero. The Valparaiso world would have rejoiced in some meeting, some scene, between him and San Martin: but his good sense, and truly honourable feelings towards the country he serves, have prevented this. If San Martin is unfortunate, and forced to fly his dominion, His Lordship’s conduct is magnanimous; if it be only a ruse de guerre on San Martin’s part to save himself, it is prudent, and will leave him at liberty to expose the Protector as he deserves.

⁕56 See Lord Cochrane’s letter, and Lima Justificada.

Monday the 21st.—During these last few days Valparaiso has enjoyed nearly its ordinary state of dull tranquillity. It seems the convention had, notwithstanding the express wish of the executive, rejected the reglamento in toto; but their vote being sent back for revision, its operation is to be suspended for a few months.

My poor invalid continues suffering, though the kindness of my neighbours and the advance of the season enable me to procure for him all the little comforts which can amuse his mind, or gratify his still delicate appetite. Milk is very abundant at this season; green peas are come in; a friend sends us asparagus from the city; and the strawberries are just ripe. It is the custom here, when this elegant fruit first comes in, to tie it up in bunches, with a rose, a pink, or a sprig of balm; and these little bunches, laid on the evergreen leaves of mayten, shaded with sprigs of the same, and laid in little wicker baskets, are brought by the rosy-faced children, from all the wardens within ten miles, to the port for sale. I have known a real 287 given for a single strawberry on their first ripening, but now a real will purchase more than two persons could eat.

26th.—The Lautaro arrived from Talcahuana under most uncomfortable circumstances: she has had a serious mutiny on board, occasioned by the want of food and other necessaries while in the south; and the officers themselves felt so severely the same evils, that they could not restrain the men, as in any other case they might have done. As soon as the ship went to a neighbouring port, where she could procure provisions, the people returned to their duty; and the captain and officers would fain have passed over the whole thing, but the mutiny was already reported to government, and it is said that it is determined to punish some of the ringleaders. I trust, however, that in their justice they will remember mercy, and think of the wants that exasperated the crew and their good conduct afterwards.

We learn that Lord Cochrane is gone to the city on business connected with the squadron; and as he is said to be living with the Director, it is hoped that at length the government will do justice in its naval department.

October 31st.—This month has been a most important one for Chile. The government has promulgated its new constitution and its new commercial regulations, neither of which appear to me to answer their purpose.

The reglamento, or commercial regulation, begins by a long preamble, addressed by the minister of the interior to the convention on laying before it the rules drawn up by a committee composed partly of ministers and partly of merchants: I understand not much of these things; but there are passages so opposite to common sense, that a child must be struck with them. The three first sections concern the establishment and subordination of custom-house officers, of whom some are to be stationary and some ambulatory; the latter are to be obeyed wherever they are met, on the hills, in the road, or out of it, in all weathers. They are to have a copper badge about the size of a crown-piece, which they are to wear concealed; and yet if they stop a cargo in the midst of the widest plain, or in the worst 288 weather, that cargo must be opened, and is not to be removed till proper officers are fetched to watch it to the nearest station, to see whether it contains smuggled goods, or whether a piece of cotton runs a yard more or less than the manifest; for now, every bale must have the precise number of yards specified as well as pieces. By this regulation many sorts of goods must be destroyed, most injured; and in case of rain, the sugars, for instance, taken from the backs of mules and examined in the open road, must be damaged, if not lost. This clumsy attempt at exactness must of course soon be put an end to.

The sixth section declares Valparaiso to be the only free port of Chile, thus doing a manifest injustice to all the others; a declaration too, highly imprudent, considering the jealousies on the subject that have always existed in the south, and those that have occasionally appeared at Coquimbo. The lesser ports, as Concon, Quintero, &c. are absolutely closed against all foreign vessels; and native ships have some hard restrictions imposed on them, such, for instance, as a prohibition to touch at those ports on their arrival from foreign countries. Besides Valparaiso, foreign ships are allowed to touch at Coquimbo, Talcahuana, and Valdivia; also San Carlos de Chiloe, when it is conquered; and, with a government licence, they may go to Huasco and Copiapo, but solely for the purpose of taking in copper.

All foreign vessels touching in any of these ports must pay four reals per ton, excepting whalers, who pay nothing: native ships coming from abroad to pay two reals per ton; but if employed in coasting, nothing: for pilotage, anchorage, and mooring, all vessels with one mast pay five dollars; with two masts, ten dollars; with three masts, fifteen dollars. National ships or foreign whalers, not trading, to pay one half of the above duties.

The seventh section confines the legal and free passes of the Andes to one; namely, that by the valley of Santa Rosa. So that those of San Juan de los Patos, the pass of the Portillo, and that of the Planchon, are shut up: this is not the way to civilise a country. 289 And, moreover, all cargoes must pass through Mendoza, and receive a certificate there, or they will not be allowed to enter Chile. All this is followed by the narrowest and most vexatious rules for manifests, for trans-shipments, for land-carriage, &c. that the ingenuity of man has devised, bearing alike upon foreigners and natives, merchants and husbandmen.

The most curious thing in the whole production is the notice in the preamble of the twelfth section concerning importations. The duties on all these are so high, as in many cases to amount to a prohibition, with the view of protecting home-manufactures, forgetting that, excepting hats and small beer, there is not a single manufactory established in Chile; for we can hardly call such the soap-boiling and candle-dipping of the country. And because a man in Santiago has actually made a pair of stockings in a day, no more foreign stockings are to be introduced; so that the ladies must learn to knit, or go barefoot; for it is hardly to be hoped that the one pair manufactured per day will supply even the capital. Better take a few Manchester stockings until he of Santiago has a few more workmen employed. As there are literally no Chilian cabinet-makers, the prohibitions of foreign chairs and tables will send the young ladies back to squatting on the estrada; and as it must be some years, perhaps centuries, before they will raise and weave silk here, or manufacture muslins, we shall have them clad in their ancient woollen manteaus; and future travellers will praise the pretty savages, instead of delighting in the society of well-dressed and well-bred young ladies. The passage which I allude to is so curious I must copy it, for the benefit of those of my friends who wish to form a just estimate of the wisdom of the Chileno legislature in these matters.

After noticing that these regulations must lead either to an increase of the public funds, or to an entire cessation of all importations, which the minister very properly contemplates as the most probable result, he says, “Would to God that these regulations may bring about the day when we shall see the total products of our custom-houses, as far as relates to foreign goods, reduced to a 290 cipher! Then should we see the true rising-star of our prosperity. Our fertile soil abounds in productions of all sorts, and we need but little from abroad. On whichever side we look, Nature is overflowing, and only wants funds, talents, activity, industry. Yes, I repeat,—let that day arrive, our exports will augment, and importation will decrease; and in a happy hour may the receipts of the treasury decrease with them,” &c. &c. &c. This, for a state yet in infancy, with a bare million of inhabitants, and those half savages, and which produces, ready made, that metal from its hills which may purchase the manufactures of the world, is perhaps as exquisite a specimen of the perversion of principles, and of their misapplication, as it is possible to conceive. The discourses of Mentor in Telemachus would be just as applicable. Chile for a long period ought not to spare people to manufacture any thing beyond necessaries; she wants hands to till the ground, to dig the mines, to man the ships, which she must have if she will have any thing. Her raw production, her staple commodity, is gold, or the equally valuable copper; and it grieves one to see a parcel of rules well enough for a ready-civilised country in Europe,—where the niggard earth yields not wherewithal to trade, and all must be laboured and fashioned, and the gold and silver must be made with men’s hands,—adopted here, where every circumstance is diametrically opposite.

This is quite enough of the reglamento for me. I have no patience for custom-house registers, and manifests, and invoices, and understand them as little as I like them. Besides, I have nothing to do with them, except as they are here part of an essay towards governing a new state by no means as yet prepared for them.

I remember the time when I should as little have thought of reading the reglamento of Chile, as I should of poring over the report of a committee of turnpike roads in a distant country; and far less should I have dreamed of occupying myself with the Constitucion Politica del estado de Chile. But, times and circumstances make strange inroads on one’s habits both of being and thinking; and I have actually caught myself reading, with a considerable degree of interest, the said Political Constitution. It was promulgated on the 23d of this 291 month, and is but newly printed; and in order to print it the public journals were stopped, as there are neither types nor workmen enough,—though I believe the chief deficiency is in the latter,—to print gazettes and a constitution at once.

The constitution is divided into eight sections; and these into chapters and articles, as the subject requires. It begins by asserting the freedom and independence of Chile as a nation, and with defining the limits of the territory, fixing Cape Horn as its southern point, and the desert of Atacama as its northern boundary; while the Andes to the east, and the ocean to the west, form its natural limits. It claims besides, the islands of the archipelago of Chiloe, those of Mocha, of Juan Fernandez, and Saint Mary. The second chapter of the first section concerns those who may be called Chilenos: 1st, those born in the country; 2d, those born of Chilian parents out of it; 3d, foreigners married to natives after three years’ residence; 4th, foreigners employing a capital of not less than 2000 dollars who shall reside for five years. All Chilenos are equal in the eye of the law; all employments are open to them; they must all contribute their proportion to the maintenance of the state.

The second section declares the religion of the state to be the Catholic Apostolic Roman, to the exclusion of all others; and that all the inhabitants must respect it, whatever be their private opinions.

The third section declares the government to be representative, and that the legislative power resides in the Congress, the executive in the Director, and the judicial in the proper tribunals. All are citizens who, being Chilenos, are of twenty-five years of age, or who are married; and, after the year 1833, they must be able to read and write. Persons shall lose their right of citizenship who, 1st, are naturalised in other countries; 2d, accept employment from any other government; 3d, are under any legal sentence not reversed; 4th, remain absent from Chile, without leave, more than five years. These rights are suspended, 1st, in case of interdiction, or of moral or physical incapacity; 2d, insolvents; 3d, defaulters to the public 292 funds; 4th, hired servants; 5th, those who have no ostensible means of livelihood; 6th, during a criminal process.

The fourth section contains sixty-two articles, and concerns the powers and divisions of the Congress, which is to consist of two chambers,—the Senate, and the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate, or court of representatives, is to consist of seven individuals, chosen by ballot by the deputies; four of whom, at least, must be of their own body; and the ex-directors, the ministers of state, the bishops having jurisdiction within the state, or, failing them, the head of the church for the time being; one minister of the supreme tribunal of justice; of three military chiefs, to be named by the Director; of the directorial delegate of the department where the Congress sits; of a doctor from each university; and of two merchants, and of two landed proprietors, whose capital shall not be less than 30,000 dollars. These to be named by the deputies. The members will thus not be less than twenty, the president being the oldest ex-director. This senate is to sit as long as the term of the Director’s power, i.e. six years; and if he be re-elected, it may continue to sit.

The Chamber of Deputies is annual, the elections being made by lists, allowing one deputy for about 15,000 souls. All citizens above twelve years old are eligible as electors, and such military men as do not command troops of the line; as deputies, such as, besides the above qualifications, have landed property to the amount of 2000 dollars, or are natives of the department where they are elected. The Congress is to meet for three months every year, on the 18th of September; and an oath is required from the deputies, to be taken before the Director and Senate, in the following form:—“Do you swear by God and your honour to proceed faithfully in the discharge of your august functions, dictating such laws as shall best conduce to the good of the nation, political and civil liberty, private safety and that of individual property, and to the other ends for which you are assembled, as set forth in our constitution?”—“Yes, I swear.”—“If you do this, God enlighten and defend you; if not, you must answer to God and the nation.”

The fifth section of the constitution contains sixty-one articles. It 293 concerns the executive power; and first, the Director, who is declared to be elective, and that the office is incapable of becoming hereditary. The direction is to last six years, and the Director may be re-elected once for four more. He must be a native of Chile, and have resided in it the five years immediately preceding his election. He must be above twenty-five years of age, and he must be elected by both Chambers of the Congress, by ballot. Two-thirds of the votes shall suffice to elect a Director. The election made by the Convention this year of the present Director shall be considered as the first.

In case of the death of the Director while the Congress is not sitting, the Director shall, on the 12th of February, the 5th of April, and the 18th of September, deposit in a box, with three several keys, to be kept by several persons, a paper sealed and signed, containing the names of the Regency who are to take charge of the government, until his successor be appointed in Congress. As the Senate is permanent, it will co-operate with the Regency in calling together the Deputies, as an extraordinary meeting of Congress, which shall separate as soon as the business of the election is over.

The Director is declared head of the army and navy. He has full powers to treat with foreign nations, and to make peace and war. Together with the Senate, he is to present to the bishoprics, and all other ecclesiastical dignities and benefices. He has the command of the treasury. He is to appoint ambassadors, to name the ministers, and secretaries of state, and to name also the judges of circuits. He may pardon or commute punishments.

After setting forth these powers and privileges, there are a few articles that look like restrictions; but as I see no means of enforcing them, they act rather as the fear of punishment in another world does on too many sinners here, than as real limitations to absolute authority.

There are three ministers of state. 1. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs;—2. Of the Home Department;—3. Of War and Marine. If the Director pleases he may give two of these offices to one person. These ministers lie under a limited responsibility, i.e. no responsibility at all.

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The sixth section of the constitution relates to the internal government of the state. The ancient Intendencias are abolished, and the country is divided into departments and districts. In each department there shall be a delegate commanding its civil and military affairs, and these are to be named by the Director and Congress. To these delegates all the superintendence of the courts of justice, the custom-houses, and duties, &c. is confided. And they are to preside in the cabildos or town councils, which in other respects are to remain on the old footing. No member of a cabildo may be arrested without the express permission of the Director.

The seventh section concerns the judical powers. They reside in the usual tribunals. There is a supreme court of five judges, without whose sanction no execution can take place. This court serves also as a court of appeal. It is entitled to examine and recommend to the executive to amend the laws. The members to visit the prison each week in turn: they are to sit as council for the Director and Senate on points of law, &c. &c. All emoluments beyond their actual pay are forbidden.

There is also a Chamber of Appeal composed of five members. But all these things in all their parts are so complicated and tiresome, not fitted for the country because they are the laws of Spain, Moorish, Gothic, Latin, all mixed, and then local customs, in short, 72,000 laws, where there are not twice the number of people who can read, that I cannot go through with them. The only sensible paragraph in this part of the constitution is the declaration that no inquisitorial institution shall ever be established in Chile.

A little section follows on public education which is very well, and shows the intention of establishing many schools and encouraging a national institute.

The section concerning the army, and militia, and navy, only places them all at the disposal of the Director.

And the last section concerns the observance and promulgation of the constitution, and the signatures of the Convention and Director.

November 1st.—My invalid is now so much better, that we have been riding out upon the hills, and getting acquainted with new 295 paths and new flowers. Poor fellow! he seems more delighted at his renewed liberty even than I am at mine. The charm of a recovered health has been so often felt that one wonders it should delight again; but

I cannot doubt that these beautiful lines of Gresset were in Grey’s mind, when he wrote his ode on recovering from sickness: the feelings are native in every heart, however, and one wants only the power of poetical expression to clothe them in verse. But independent of all this, the neighbourhood of Valparaiso is peculiarly beautiful at this time. The shrubs have all been refreshed by the rains; the ground is covered with a profusion of flowers; the fruit is just ripening; and the climate, always agreeable, is now, in this spring-time, delicious. No poet ever feigned for his Tempe a more charming sky than that of Chile; and there is a sweetness and softness in the air that soothes the spirits and doubles every other pleasure.

2d.—We have had a great many visitors, and of course some news, the most interesting of which is, that the government is in earnest in its intentions to pay the squadron. One half of the payments will, it is said, be made in money, the other half in bills upon the custom-house. Lord Cochrane arrived from the city last night, and is pitching tents by the sea-shore beyond the fort for himself, because he does not choose to accept a house from government, in 296 the way these things are managed here. He has of course a claim to the accommodation of a dwelling on shore; and an order was sent to the governor of Valparaiso to provide one. The governor consequently pitched upon one of the most commodious in the port, and sent an order to Mr. C——, an Englishman, to remove with his family, and to leave it furnished for the Admiral, such being the old Spanish custom. But His Lordship would by no means allow Mr. C. to move, and has accordingly pitched a tent. His friends are a little anxious about this step. No Chileno would lift his hand against him; but there are persons now in Chile who hate him, and who have both attempted and committed assassination.

Sunday, November 3d.—This evening, at about nine o’clock, the Director came quietly to the port. It is said he is come to see the squadron paid. Some assert that he is come in order not immediately to meet San Martin, who, having bathed at Cauquenes, is about to move into the city, and is to take up his residence in the directorial palace, only, however, as a private visitor.⁕57 He is to have a double guard: but if he is, as it is said, so beloved, why should he fear? I suspect that, like other opium-eaters, he is become nervous.

I trust, for the honour of human nature, that an opinion which I have heard concerning the Director’s appearance in the port, is unfounded: it is, that he is come hither in order to seize an opportunity of getting possession of Lord Cochrane’s person, that is, to sacrifice him to the revenge of San Martin in compliance with the entreaties forwarded from Peru, by the agents Paroissien and Del Rio.

⁕57 If I were first magistrate of a country, however, I should not choose to accustom the people to see another in my place.

November 7th.—We have been riding about for several days, and making acquaintance among the neighbouring farmers: every where we are invited to alight and take milk, or at least to rest, and walk in the gardens and gather flowers. It is quite refreshing to see the gentle and frank manners of the peasants of the country, after all the bustle and petty intrigue of the port and its in-dwellers. To-day, 297 however, I have spent very agreeably to myself, chiefly at the Admiral’s tents; but that is far enough from the town not to hear its noise. Having lodged Glennie at the tents, I returned to the town and called on the Director, who is living in the government-house; and Zenteno and his family are gone to another. His Excellency looks very well, and received me as courteously as I could wish; and, according to the custom of the country, as soon as I was seated presented me with a flower. I know not how it happened, but the discourse turned on nunneries, and I mentioned the Philippine nuns in Rome; on which he begged to have a particular notice of them and their rule, in order to better the condition, if possible, of the nuns of Chile, and especially of such as superintend the education of young girls. This I promised; and as soon as I came home, sent him such notices as I had, with references to the ecclesiastical histories I suppose he can command in the public library. I little thought, when visiting in the parlour of that convent, which was once Cæsar Borgia’s palace, and looking over the ruins of Rome from its galleries, painted by Domenichino, I think, that that visit might become of consequence to the forlorn recluses of Chile!

Having paid my visits, I returned to the tents, and found that my patient had been sleeping quietly. Lord Cochrane, much interested in him, kindly pressed me to take him for change of air to Quintero, which I am most willing to do; and as soon as he is strong enough, I mean to go. The Admiral himself does not look very well, but that is not marvellous; the squadron is still unpaid. The charges preferred against him by San Martin, though never credited by the government, which possesses abundant documents in its own hands to refute them, have remained uncontradicted by him, at the request of that government, in order to avoid exciting party spirit, or a quarrel, perhaps a war, between Peru and Chile. But now that all danger of that kind is over, and as San Martin is honoured by having the palace itself appointed for his residence, and receives every mark of public attention, as if on purpose to insult Lord Cochrane, those charges should and will be answered; and answered too with facts and dates which will completely overwhelm all the accusations, direct and indirect, 298 that were ever drawn up or insinuated against him. There are other causes too why those now in high station in Chile should be anxious: there are reports and whispers from the north and from the south, of discontents of various kinds. The brothers and kindred of the dead, and of the exiled, have not forgotten them; and to see the man whom they consider as the author of their misfortunes received and honoured, irritates them. With every respect for the personal character of the Director, they see him as the friend and ally of San Martin, and the supporter of Rodriguez and his comrades; and I can hear that sort of covert voice of discontent that precedes civil strife. The government of Santiago throws all the blame of this discontent on the squadron, and has sent a few troops here, it is said, to intimidate it: but the number is so small, that it would scarcely suffice to guard the Director, or to secure a state prisoner; to which latter purpose those who best know the dispositions of the government believe them to be destined. The Admiral is undoubtedly the person who would be seized, if the partisans of San Martin dared commit so great an outrage; nor would they stop there. San Martin’s victims never survive his grasp. I am grieved that the Director should lend himself to such a purpose. The people in the port seeming not to dare to speak, say in fact every thing; and I was glad to take refuge from hearing disagreeable things at the tents, where, at least, we are secure from hearing of the politics of Chile.

12th.—I may say, with the North Americans, every thing is progressing; Glennie is much better; the discontents are spreading. The squadron is in a way to be paid, though, perhaps, too late; but when the money came down, they forgot to send stamped paper to make out tickets, &c.; so the officers and sailors must wait till proper paper can be stamped, and sent from Santiago for the purpose. I have received a letter from the Director in answer to mine about the nuns. The reglamento is producing all manner of confusion; Lord Cochrane is proceeding with his refutation of San Martin; and I have seen him, and fixed on a time for being at Quintero. The only thing that is not progressing is the repairing the ships. I understand that Mr. Olver, a most ingenious artificer, has made the estimates, and undertaken 299 the execution: but it is doubtful if the government, which, like some others, is sometimes penny-wise and pound-foolish, will think it expedient to part with the necessary sums to put its ships in order. Yet if it do not, the coasts must be left defenceless, or new ships bought at an exorbitant price.

I have been looking back at my journal of the last six weeks, and it struck me as I read it that it is something like a picture gallery; where you have historical pieces, and portraits, and landscapes, and still life, and flowers, side by side. Every other thing written pretends to be a whole in itself, and to be either history, or landscape, or portrait; and generally the author finishes it for a cabinet picture. But my poor journal, written in a new country and in a time of agitation, to say the least of it, can pretend to no unity of design; for can I foresee what will happen to-morrow? And, as my heroes and heroines (by-the-bye, I have but a scanty proportion of the latter,) are all independent personages, I cannot, like a novel-writer, compel them to figure in my pages to please me, but they govern themselves; and that, where to write a journal is only a kind of substitute for reading the new books of the day, which I should assuredly do at home, is perhaps as well: the uncertainty of the end keeps up the interest.

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November 14th, Concon.—This morning we set off early from home, and at eleven o’clock arrived at Viña a la Mar, the hacienda of the Carreras. The family has suffered much during the revolution, the head of it being cousin-german to Jose Miguel Carrera. Some of the sons met an untimely death; one of them is now an exile in the service of Artigas: three daughters only, out of nine, are married; the rest are living with their parents at Viña a la Mar. It is a noble property: the little stream Margamarga flows through it to the sea, forming a valley exceedingly fertile; and at the village, whence the stream takes its name, the best dairies in the district are situated. The house of the hacienda is placed nearly in the middle of a little plain formed of the alluvial soil washed down from the surrounding mountains, which rise behind it like an amphitheatre. A few fields and some very fine garden ground, cultivated by a Frenchman, Pharoux, occupy the space between it and the sea. Behind it lies the extensive vineyard, which is gradually making way for corn, which is both more successful and more profitable than wine here.

We were received most hospitably by Madame Carrera, who was sitting on a very low sofa at the end of the estrada, on which some of her grand-children were at play, while her daughters sat round on chairs and stools. Refreshments were offered instantly, and warm milk with sugar and a little grated cinnamon was brought in and presented, with slices of bread. The invalid was then taken into a pleasant cool room to rest; and while he slept, the young ladies showed Mr. Davidson, who had escorted us from the port, and myself, the garden, orchard, and farm offices, which differed little from those I had seen before, except that they were much out of repair. But as the nature of the farm is changing from a wine to a corn farm, all the vats and the alembics for brandy, &c. are becoming useless, and will be replaced by granaries. The dinner was a mixture of Chileno and English customs and cookery; the children and the grandmother being most Chilian, the young ladies most English. After a reasonable time after dinner, we rode on to Concon, and were met about half way by Mr., Mrs., and Miss Miers. It was one of the 301 loveliest evenings of this lovely climate, and I felt more than commonly exhilarated and disposed to enjoy it, not having been so far on horseback since my disastrous ride from San Francisco de Monte to Santiago.

15th.—Rode to the mouth of the river; part of the water of which is lost in the sand accumulated there, part is kept back on the land, and produces a marshy lake; but there is enough left to form a considerable stream at the regular outlet. I was grieved to see a great quantity of very fine machinery, adapted for rolling copper, lying on the shore, where Mr. Miers had thrown out a little pier. This machinery has been regarded with jealousy by certain members of the government, because some part of it may be used for coining; and yet that jealousy will not, I fear, prompt the state to buy it, and thereby reform their own clumsy proceedings at the mint. However, here lie wheels, and screws, and levers, waiting till more favourable circumstances shall enable Mr. Miers to proceed with his farther plans. But time, his becoming a citizen with some landed property, and the circumstances of his children being born here, will, I trust, do every thing for him.

The hills here have no longer the same character as about Valparaiso: there, a reddish clay, with veins of granite and white quartz, form the greater part, if not the whole mass; here they consist of a greyish or blackish sand, with layers of pebbles and shells visible at different heights by the sea-side. The plain on either side of the river is rich deep soil, with all sorts of things in it that a large river swelling and passing its bounds twice a year may be supposed to deposit. The first inundation, for it is little less, is during the rains; the second on the melting of the snows of the Andes: it is said also to rise in misty weather; but this place is so close to the mountains, that it must feel the daily changes of weather in the cordillera; and, indeed, I believe there is always less water in the morning than in the evening, owing, of course, to the melting of snow in the day time.

17th.—We rode to Quintero, stopping to rest at the old house on 302 the lake. As this is a cattle estate, it is not populous in proportion to its extent; but still every valley has its little homestead or two, around which, at the latter end of the rains, and while the cattle are in the mountains, the peasants form their little chacra, or cultivated spot, for pease, gourds, melons, onions, potatoes, French beans, (which, dried, as frixole, forms a main article of their food,) and other vegetables. This little harvest must all be gathered in before the season for the return of the cattle to the plain, as the landlord has then a right to turn in the beasts to every field; and this is often a great hardship, because the peasants are bound to duty-work perhaps six, eight, ten, twelve, or more days in the year, at the will of the landlord as to season. Now, it often happens that he employs his people to clear his own chacra just at the moment when theirs is ready to be cleared; and the time passes, and the poor man’s food is trodden down by the oxen: here on this estate, while the present master is in the country, such things cannot happen; but the legal right exists, and a hard master or overseer may exercise it. Under Lord Cochrane, the peasantry have found an unwonted freedom which they are so totally unused to, from motives of humane consideration, that they have taken it for carelessness, and have abused it; but better so, than that they should be oppressed! Each settler pays a few reals as ground-rent; two dollars, on some estates more, for pasture for every horse, mule, ox, or cow, and double for every hundred sheep. The tenants of Quintero, taking advantage of the owner’s long absence, and the carelessness or dishonesty of the overseer, have increased their private flocks and cattle beyond what the estate will bear, without account or payment, and thus materially injured it.

We found Mr. Bennet, Lord Cochrane’s Spanish secretary, and my friend Carrillo, the painter, ready to receive us. The former is a remarkable person, on account of his long residence and singular adventures in South America. Il narre bien, and I suspect better in Spanish than in English; but there is something not unpleasant in the broad Lincolnshire dialect which gives an air of originality to his thoughts, as well as his stories. He affects a singularity of dress: 303 sometimes a loose shirt and looser trousers, nankeen slippers, a black fur cap, and a sash, form the whole of his habiliments; at other times, wide cossack trousers, a blue jacket, real gold buttons, a small pair of epaulettes, and a military cap, and the sash tight round his waist, adorn him;—rarely does he condescend to wear a neckcloth, even when the rest of his dress is in conformity with common usage; but when in full costume, his thin pale personage, and eye with an outward cast in it, are set off by a full suit of black, with shiny silk breeches that look like CONSTITUTIONAL CALAMANCO (v. Rejected Addresses), enormous bunches of ribbon at the knees, and buckles in his shoes. I never could help laughing when I saw him in this stiff dress, forming so complete a contrast with the description he gives of his costume while, during the early period of the revolution, he was governor at Esmeraldas; an honour which, I can well believe, was forced on him. Then, his body was painted, his head adorned with feathers, and his clothing as light as that of any wild Indian.

He was dressed now in middle costume, to do the honours of Quintero; and most politely he did them to Mrs. Miers and me, and most kindly to Glennie. After dinner we engaged him to tell us various parts of his adventures; and were vulgar enough to prefer his account of the earthquake he experienced at the Baranca, when the dismayed inhabitants fled to the hills, and expected every moment to see their ruined town swallowed up, as Callao had been in 1747.⁕58 After the earthquake, he told us of his visits to tremendous volcanoes, and said, that he had himself descended lower into the crater of 304 Pinchincha than where Humboldt had left his mark. I enquired of him, whether the people in any of the countries he has lived in had an idea that earthquakes could be considered as periodical, and whether the few instances in which they had occurred twice at regular intervals were thought to promise farther coincidences; mentioning, that in that case we wanted but a year or two at most of the return of the severe earthquake of this part of Chile. But I could not learn that any Indian superstition or tradition pointed that way, any more than the speculations of European natural philosophers; and, indeed, twice within these five years, Coquimbo and Copiapo, hitherto described as never touched by these calamities, have been utterly destroyed, and have thus contradicted some theories about situations, soils, &c.⁕59

18th.—We tried to persuade Mrs. Miers to remain with us, but in vain. She was anxious to return to her children, and accordingly left us in time to get home by daylight. I made a little sketch of the house; and having found a lithographic press here, I mean to draw it on stone, and so produce the first print of any kind that has been done in Chile; or, I believe, on this side of South America.

305

November 20th.—Yesterday, after dinner, Glennie having fallen into a sound sleep in his arm-chair by the fire side, Mr. Bennet and I, attracted by the fineness of the evening, took our seats to the veranda overlooking the bay; and, for the first time since my arrival in Chile, I saw it lighten. The lightning continued to play uninterruptedly over the Andes until after dark, when a delightful and calm moonlight night followed a quiet and moderately warm day. We returned reluctantly to the house on account of the invalid, and were sitting quietly conversing, when, at a quarter past ten, the house received a violent shock, with a noise like the explosion of a mine; and Mr. Bennet starting up, ran out, exclaiming, “An earthquake, an earthquake! for God’s sake follow me!” I, feeling more for Glennie than any thing, and fearing the night air for him, sat still: he, looking at me to see what I would do, did the same; until, the vibration still increasing, the chimneys fell, and I saw the walls of the house open. Mr. Bennet again cried from without, “For God’s sake, come away from the house!” So we rose and went to the veranda, meaning, of course, to go by the steps; but the vibration increased with such violence, that hearing the fall of a wall behind us, we jumped down from the little platform to the ground; and were scarcely there, when the motion of the earth changed from a quick vibration to a rolling like that of a ship at sea, so that it was with difficulty that Mr. Bennet and I supported Glennie. The shock lasted three minutes; and, by the time it was over, every body in and about the house had collected on the lawn, excepting two persons; one the wife of a mason, who was shut up in a small room which she could not open; the other Carillo, who, in escaping from his room by the wall which fell, was buried in the ruins, but happily preserved by the lintel falling across him.

Never shall I forget the horrible sensation of that night. In all other convulsions of nature we feel or fancy that some exertion may be made to avert or mitigate danger; but from an earthquake there is neither shelter nor escape: the “mad disquietude” that agitates every heart, and looks out in every eye, seems to me as awful as the 306 last judgment can be; and I regret that my anxiety for my patient overcoming other feelings, I had not my due portion of that sublime terror: but I looked round and I saw it. Amid the noise of the destruction before and around us, I heard the lowings of the cattle all the night through; and I heard too the screaming of the sea-fowl, which ceased not till morning. There was not a breath of air; yet the trees were so agitated, that their topmost branches seemed on the point of touching the ground. It was some time ere our spirits recovered so as to ask each other what was to be done; but we placed Glennie, who had had a severe hemorrhage from the lungs instantly, under a tree in an arm-chair. I stood by him while Mr. B. entered the house and procured spirits and water, of which we all took a little; and a tent was then pitched for the sick man, and we fetched out a sofa and blankets for him. Then I got a man to hold a light, and venture with me to the inner rooms to fetch medicine. A second and a third shock had by this time taken place, but so much less violent than the first, that we had reasonable hopes that the worst was over; and we proceeded through the ruined sitting-rooms to cross the court where the wall had fallen, and as we reached the top of the ruins, another smart shock seemed to roll them from under our feet. At length we reached the first door of the sleeping apartments; and on entering I saw the furniture displaced from the walls, but paid little attention to it. In the second room, however, the disorder, or rather the displacing, was more striking; and then it seemed to me that there was a regularity in the disposal of every thing: this was still more apparent in my own room; and after having got the medicines and bedding I went for, I observed the furniture in the different rooms, and found that it had all been moved in the same direction. This morning I took in my compass, and found that direction to be north-west and southeast. The night still continued serene; and though the moon went down early, the sky was light, and there was a faint aurora australis. Having made Glennie lie down in the tent, I put my mattress on the ground by him. Mr. Bennet, and the overseer, and the workmen, 307 lay down with such bedding as they could get round the tent. It was now twelve o’clock: the earth was still at unrest; and shocks, accompanied by noises like the explosion of gunpowder, or rather like those accompanying the jets of fire from a volcano, returned every two minutes. I lay with my watch in my hand counting them for forty-five minutes; and then, wearied out, I fell asleep: but a little before two o’clock a loud explosion and tremendous shock roused every one; and a horse and a pig broke loose, and came to take refuge among us. At four o’clock there was another violent shock; and the interval had been filled with a constant trembling, with now and then a sort of cross-motion, the general direction of the undulations being north and south. At a quarter past six o’clock there was another shock, which at another time would have been felt severely; since that hour, though there has been a continued series of agitations, such as to shake and even spill water from a glass, and though the ground is still trembling under me, there has been nothing to alarm us. I write at four o’clock P. M.—At daylight I went out of the tent to look at the earth. The dew was on the grass, and all looked as beautiful as if the night’s agitation had not taken place; but here and there cracks of various sizes appeared in various parts of the hill. At the roots of the trees, and the bases of the posts supporting the veranda, the earth appeared separate, so that I could put my hand in; and had the appearance of earth where the gardener’s dibble had been used. By seven o’clock persons from various quarters had arrived, either to enquire after our fate, or communicate their own. From Valle Alegri, a village on the estate, we hear that many, even of the peasants’ houses, are damaged, and some destroyed. In various places in the middle of the gardens, the earth has cracked, and water and sand have been forced up through the surface; some banks have fallen in, and the water-courses are much injured.

Mr. Cruikshank has ridden over from old Quintero: he tells us that great fissures are made on the banks of the lake; the house is not habitable; some of its inmates were thrown down by the shock, 308 and others by the falling of various articles of furniture upon them. At Concon the whole house is unroofed, the walls cracked, the iron supporters broken, the mill a ruin, and the banks of the mill-stream fallen in. The alluvial soil on each side of the river looks like a sponge, it is so cracked and shaken: there are large rents along the sea-shore; and during the night the sea seems to have receded in an extraordinary manner, and especially in Quintero bay. I see from the hill, rocks above water that never were exposed before; and the wreck of the Aquila appears from this distance to be approachable dry-shod, though till to-day that was not the case in the lowest tides.

Half past eight P. M.—We hear reports that the large and populous town of Quillota, is a heap of ruins, and that Valparaiso is little better. If so, the destruction there must have reached to the inhabitants as well as the houses,—God forbid it should be so! At a quarter before six another very serious shock, and one this moment. Slight shocks occur every fifteen or twenty minutes. The evening is as fine as possible; the moon is up, and shines beautifully over the lake and the bay: the stars and aurora australis are also brilliant, and a soft southerly breeze has been blowing since daylight. We have erected a large rancho with bamboo from Guayaquil and reeds from the lake, so that we can eat and sleep under cover. Glennie and I keep the tent; the rest sleep in the rancho.

Thursday, November 21st.—At half past two a.m. I was awoke, by a severe shock. At ten minutes before three a tremendous one, which made us feel anew that utter helplessness which is so appalling. At a quarter before eight, another not so severe; a quarter past nine, another. At half past ten and a quarter past one, they were repeated; one at twenty minutes before two with very loud noise, lasting a minute and a half; and the last remarkable one to-day at a quarter past ten. These were all that were in any degree alarming, but slight shocks occurred every twenty or thirty minutes.

Mr. M—— is returned from the port. Lord Cochrane was on board the O’Higgins at the time of the first great shock, and went on shore instantly to the Director; for whom he got a tent pitched 309 on the hill behind the town.⁕60 His Lordship writes me that my cottage is still standing, though every thing round is in ruins. Mr. M. says, that there is not a house standing whole in the Almendral. The church of the Merced is quite destroyed. Not one house in the port remains habitable, though many retain their forms. There is not a living creature to be seen in the streets; but the hills are covered with wretches driven from their homes, and whose mutual fears keep up mutual distraction. The ships in the harbour are crowded with people; no provisions are to be had; the ovens are ruined, and the bakers cannot work. Five English persons were killed, and they were digging out some of the natives; but the loss of life has not been so great as might have been feared. Had the catastrophe happened later, when the people had retired to bed, the destruction must have been very dreadful. We hear that Casa Blanca is totally ruined.

⁕60 Don Bernardo O’Higgins, the Director, whose business at Valparaiso was of a nature decidedly hostile to Lord Cochrane, narrowly escaped with his life in hurrying out of the government house. He received on that terrific night protection and attention from the Admiral, which I hope for the honour of human nature caused him at this time to suspend his hostile intentions: But I fear that his temporary retirement from the government on reaching Santiago, was only to leave others at liberty to do as they pleased.

Friday, November 22d.—Three severe shocks at a quarter past four, at half past seven, and at nine o’clock. After that there were three loud explosions, with slight trembling between; then a severe shock at eleven; two or three very slight before one o’clock; and then we had a respite until seven P. M., when there was a slight shock.

As we are thirty miles from the port, and ninety from the city, the reports come to us but slowly. To-day, however, we learn that Santiago is less damaged than we expected. The mint has suffered seriously; part of the directorial palace has fallen; the houses and churches are in some instances cracked through: but no serious damage is done, excepting the breaking down the canals for irrigation in some places. A gentleman from Valparaiso describes the sensation experienced on board the ships as being as if they had suddenly 310 got under weigh and gone along with violence, striking on rocks as they went. Last night, the priests had prophesied a more severe shock than the first. No one went to bed: all that could huddle themselves and goods on board any vessel did so; and the hills were covered with groups of houseless creatures, sitting round the fires in awful expectation of a mighty visitation. On the night of the nineteenth, during the first great shock, the sea in Valparaiso bay rose suddenly, and as suddenly retired in an extraordinary manner, and in about a quarter of an hour seemed to recover its equilibrium; but the whole shore is more exposed, and the rocks are four feet higher out of the water than before.

Such are our reports from a distance. Nearer home we have had the same prophecy, concerning a greater shock with an inundation to be expected; and the peasants consequently abandoned their dwellings, and fled to the hills. The shock did not arrive, and that it did not has been attributed to the interposition of Our Lady of Quintero. This same Lady of Quintero has a chapel at the old house, and her image there has long been an object of peculiar veneration. Thither, on the first dreadful night, flocked all the women of the neighbourhood, and with shrieks and cries entreated her to come to their assistance; tearing their hair, and calling her by all the endearing names which the church of Rome permits to the objects of its worship. She came not forth, however; and in the morning, when the priests were able to force the doors obstructed by the fallen rubbish, they found her prostrate, with her head off, and several fingers broken. It was not long, however, before she was restored to her pristine state, dressed in clean clothes, and placed in the attitude of benediction before the door of her shattered fane.

We had a thick fog to-day, and a cold drizzling rain all the morning till noon; when it cleared up, and became still and warm. During many of the shocks, I observed wine or water on the table was not agitated by a regular tremulous motion, but appeared suddenly thrown up in heaps. On the surface of the water, in one large decanter, I observed three such heaps form and suddenly subside, as if dashing against the 311 sides. Mercury, in a decanter, was affected in the same manner. We had no barometer with us, nor could I learn that any observations had been made.

Saturday, 23d.—The shocks diminished in frequency and force during the night and the early part of the day, only one having been felt before four P. M.; when there were four between that and this hour, ten o’clock. The weather has been cloudy but pleasant to-day.

More reports from the neighbourhood. The fishermen all along the coast assert, that on the night of the 19th they saw a light far out at sea, which was stationary for some time; then advanced towards the land, and, dividing into two, disappeared. The priests have converted this into the Virgin with lights to save the country.

A Beata saint at Santiago foretold the calamity the day before; the people prayed, and the city suffered little. A propio was despatched to Valparaiso, who arrived too late, although he killed three horses under him, to put the people on their guard.

Since the 19th the young women of Santiago, dressed in white, bare-footed, and bare-headed, with their hair unbraided, and bearing black crucifixes, have been going about the streets singing hymns and litanies, in procession, with all the religious orders at their head. At first, the churches were crowded, and the bells tolled the distress incessantly, till the government, aware that many of the belfries and some of the churches were cracked, shut them up, lest they should fall on the heads of the people; so that now they perform their acts of devotion in the streets, and each family devotes its daughters to the holy office.

At length we have an account of the catastrophe as it affected Quillota from Don Fausto del Hoyo, Lord Cochrane’s prisoner. Don Fausto’s head-quarters, now he is a prisoner at large, have been generally at that place, though he is equally at home at Quintero. He always speaks of Lord Cochrane as EL TIO (uncle), a term of endearment used by soldiers to their chief, by children to their older friends. He is a shrewd man, but not clever,—unconquerably 312 attached to his country, Old Spain, and firmly resolved to have nothing more to do with war. He was with Romana in the north of Germany and Denmark; embarked with him in the Victory, followed his fortunes, and at length came to Chile with the expedition, when the Maria Isabella, now the O’Higgins, came out, and he himself was taken prisoner at Valdivia.

Don Fausto then reports from Quillota, that he and some friends were in the plaça, mixing with the people in the festivities of the eve of the octave of San Martin, the tutelar saint of Quillota.⁕61 The market-place was filled with booths and bowers of myrtle and roses; under which feasting and revelry, dancing, fiddling, and masking, were going on, and the whole was a scene of gay dissipation, or rather dissoluteness. The earthquake came,—in an instant all was changed. Instead of the sounds of the viol and the song, there arose a cry of “Misericordia! Misericordia!” and a beating of the breast, and a prostration of the body; and the thorns were plaited into crowns, which the sufferers pressed on their heads till the blood streamed down their faces, the roses being now trampled underfoot. Some ran to their falling houses, to snatch thence children forgotten in the moments of festivity, but dear in danger. The priests wrung their hands over their fallen altars, and the chiefs of the people fled to the hills. Such was the night of the nineteenth at Quillota.

The morning of the 20th exhibited a scene of greater distress. Only twenty houses and one church remained standing of that large town. All the ovens had been destroyed, and there was no bread: the governor had fled, and the people cried out that his sins had brought down the judgment. Some went so far as to accuse the government at Santiago, and to say its tyranny had awakened God’s 313 vengeance. Meantime the deputy-governor, Mr. Fawkner, an Englishman by birth, assembled the principal persons to take measures for relieving the sufferers; among the rest, came Don —— Dueñas, a man of good family, married to one of the Carreras of Viña a la Mar, and proprietor of the hacienda of San Pedro. He had been in his house with his wife and child: he could not save both at once; he preferred his wife; and while he was bearing her out, the roof fell, and his infant was crushed. His loss of property had been immense. This man then, with this load of domestic affliction, came to Fawkner, and told him he had ordered already four bullocks to be killed and distributed to the poor; and desired him, as governor, to remember, that though his losses had been severe, he was comparatively a rich man, and therefore able as he was willing to deal of his property to his neighbours and fellow-sufferers.

⁕61 Don Fausto calls it San Martin de Tours; if so, it was the octave, not the eve, because St. Martin of Tours has his festivals on the 4th July, 13th December, and 11th of November: the last is the principal festival; therefore the octave would fall on the nineteenth. If it were the eve of the octave, then the saint must be the Pope Saint Martin, whose feast is held on the 12th November.

Sunday, 24th.—Our register of shocks to-day gives one at eight o’clock A. M.; and again at one, at three, at five, and at eleven, P. M. I was on horseback, and did not feel the first.

I had wished to go to the port on the 20th, but the river had swelled so much that the ford was unsafe until to-day, when I left Quintero at six o’clock. The loose banks and the edges of the water-courses are pretty generally cracked or broken down; there are cracks along the beach between the Herradura and Concon, but they have been nearly filled up by the loose sand falling in; some rocks and stones that the lowest tides never left dry, have now a passage between them and the low water-mark sufficient to ride round easily. As I approached the river, the cracks and rents in the alluvial soil almost assumed the appearance of chasms, and the earth appears to have sunk on the sides of the river, where, as in Valle Allegri, water and sand have been forced up through the rents. The water at the ford was uncomfortably high, but we passed safely; though a mule I had brought for baggage lost her footing, and was carried a little way down the stream before she could recover enough to swim to the opposite shore. My friends at Concon have suffered 314 a good deal: their house is unroofed; that is, on one side every tile is off, and a considerable part of those on the other side. The walls of the mill are quite destroyed; but the strong corner-posts have supported the roof, and the machinery is but little damaged. The sides of the mill-lead have fallen in; but the mill has gained by such an alteration in the bed of the river as has given the water several inches more fall than it had.—The night of the 19th was terrific here. The two children of Mr. Miers were in bed in rooms which had no communication with each other, and one of them none but from the outer veranda with any part of the house. Mr. Miers hurried his wife from the house, she shrieking for her children: he ran back for the youngest,—the showers of tiles prevented his approaching the place where the eldest was: there was a moment’s pause,—he found the child asleep, and brought him out safe. The family spent that night without sleep, walking in front of their ruined home. In the morning they pitched a tent; and by the time I arrived there they had a ramada, or hut of branches. During the great shock the earth had rent literally under their feet, and they describe the sound along the valley as most fearful. The church of Concon is overthrown, and the estate-house nearly destroyed.

At Viña a la Mar I found the whole family established in a ramada at their outer gate-way; there nothing was standing but part of the front wall of the dwelling-house: the ruin had been complete; not a shelter remained for any living thing. The whole of the little plain is covered with small cones from one to four feet high, thrown up from below on the night of the 19th, and from which sand and water had been thrown out. I attempted to ride up towards one of them; but on approaching it, the horse began to sink as in a quick-sand; therefore I desisted, not choosing to pay too dearly for the gratification of my curiosity.

The road between Viña a la Mar and the port is very much injured by the falling of the rocks from above: in one place indeed it is rendered extremely unsafe; but the horses of Chile are so sure-footed, 315 that I had no apprehension but from the chance of a severe shock while passing the perilous place. At length I reached the heights of the port; and looking down, from thence, there appears little difference on the town, excepting the absence of the churches and higher buildings: from a distance, the ruins in the line of the streets fill the eye as well. As I approached nearer, the tents and huts of the wretched fugitives claimed my undivided attention; and there indeed I saw the calamity in a light it had not hitherto appeared in. Rich and poor, young and old, masters and servants, were huddled together in intimacy frightful even here, where the distinction of rank is by no means so broad as in Europe. I can quite understand, now, the effect of great general calamities in demoralising and loosening the ties of society. The historians of the middle ages tell of the pestilence that drove people forth from the cities to seek shelter in the fields from contagion, and returned them with a worse plague, in the utter corruption of morals into which they had fallen. Nor was “the plague in London” without its share of the moral scourge. “Sweet are the uses of adversity” to individuals and to educated men; but I fear that whatever cause makes large bodies of men very miserable, makes them also very wicked.

I rode on in no very cheerful temper to my own house, where I found some persons had taken refuge. It had suffered so little, that I think fourteen tiles off one corner was the extent of the damage; but the white-wash shaken off the walls, and the loosening of every thing about it, showed that the shock had been severe. I was in hopes, seeing the state of the ranchos of the peasants around, that my poor neighbours had likewise escaped. But poor Maria came to me evidently sick at heart. I asked for little Paul, her son, a fine boy of five years old; when she burst into tears. He was sleeping in the rancho on his little bed: she had been out at a neighbour’s house. She ran home to seek her son: she entered her cottage,—he lay on his bed; but a rafter had been shaken from its place,—it had fallen on his 316 little head, and from the face alone she could not have told it was her own child. And then came another grief: they came to take the body and bury it,—she had not four dollars in the house; the priests, therefore, as she could not pay the fees, refused to bury it in consecrated ground: and “They have thrown my child into a pit like a dog, where the horses and the mules will walk over him, and where a Christian prayer will not reach him!”—All comment on this would be idle; as were my words of comfort to the sad mother. She only answered, “Ah, Señora! why were you not here?”

Seeing that my house was in a manner untouched, the priests resolved to make a miracle of it; and accordingly, by daylight on the 20th, Nuestra Señora del Pilar was found, in her satin gown, standing close to my stove, and received numerous offerings for having protected the premises, and I suppose carried off a silver pocket-compass and a smelling bottle, the only two things I missed.

Finding there was little to be done at home this afternoon, I rode on to the port as soon as I had taken some refreshment. The Almendral presents a sad spectacle: not a house remains habitable; all the roofs and walls of the land-side are ruined, those of the sea-side are seriously injured. The tower of the church is a heap of sand, and broken brick, and gilt and painted plaister, and all that is ugly and painful in a recent ruin: part of the roof still remains, suspended between some of the side buttresses, and its hideous saints and demons only make the devastation appear more horrible. The port itself is in some parts utterly destroyed, in others scarcely injured: here a fort with not a stone left on another; there a shop whose tiles have scarcely been loosened. The ruined and the unruined form alternate lines. It appears that where the veins of granite rock ran under the foundations, the buildings have stood tolerably well; but wherever any thing was erected on the sand or clay it has been damaged.

There was not a human being in the town; so I went on board the English merchant vessel Medway, where Captain White had sheltered 317 my friends the Hogans, among many others, and there I was kindly invited to sleep. The reports I heard on arriving here once more awakened my attention to the affairs of Chile, which the more immediate feelings connected with the earthquake had made me, for the moment, lose sight of.

At length the government had resolved to pay the squadron; and the first plan, not uninfluenced, it is believed, by the counsels of San Martin, was to pay the men and petty officers before the officers; also to pay them ashore, the pay office being provided either with leave-tickets for four months, or discharges to give them on demand, so as to have left the ships, the Admiral, and the officers in the harbour, without a man. This plan, of course, the Admiral would not suffer, and therefore the payments are making on board: the first took place on the very day of the earthquake; and I have been told that the confusion of the scene in the streets on that disastrous night, was increased by the number of sailors ashore on leave, and making merry with their friends on their newly-received pay. They receive bills of twenty-five dollars; four only of which they will get silver for, the rest they are compelled to expend in clothes at the shops set up for that purpose by Arcas in the port.

This day the Independencia, the only effective ship of the squadron, was despatched without the Admiral’s leave, without even the formality of transmitting the orders through him! But Zenteno, as minister of marine, took upon himself to send her on a particular service. It is understood to be in pursuit of a vessel or vessels going to San Carlos of Chiloe with money and stores, which are to be intercepted.

Monday, 25th.—So severe a shock took place at a quarter past eight o’clock this morning, as to shake down a great deal of what had been spared on the night of the 19th. Two others occurred in the course of the forenoon, and two after seven at night. I have been busy all day packing my books, clothes, &c., to remove; because my house is let over my head to some persons who, seeing how well it 318 has stood, have bribed the landlord to let it to them.—They are English!

While I was thus busy, Lord Cochrane called, with Captain Crosbie. His Lordship most kindly, most humanely, desired me to remain at Quintero, with my poor invalid, and not to think of removing him or myself until more favourable times and circumstances; and told me he would soon go thither, and settle whereabouts I should shelter myself and Glennie till he should be well enough finally to remove.

Tuesday, 26th.—There were five shocks during this day: I must now omit many; because, unless they are very severe, I never awake in consequence of them during the night. While I was at my own house packing up, I was surprised to see my friend Mr. C. ride up: he had just arrived from Conception, a distance of 170 leagues, which he had ridden by by-ways in five days. He had passed through Talca and San Fernando; at both of which places, as well as Conception, the earthquake of the 19th had been felt, but not severely. Mr. H., who has just returned from the city, tells me that Casa Blanca and Melipilla are both a heap of ruins: Illapel is also destroyed, and all the village churches have suffered; nothing but the ranchos escape: they are built like hurdles, and though the mud shakes from the interstices, they are safe. Mr. C. has indeed, however, brought intelligence more important than any thing connected with the earthquake. The people of Conception, enraged at the unjust provisions of the reglamento, and at other oppressive measures, have burnt the same reglamento and the constitution in the market-place; have convoked an opposition convention; and have insisted on Freire’s taking the field with the acknowledged purpose of turning out Rodriguez and the rest of the iniquitous administration. Freire has already marched, but as yet his motions cannot be known at Santiago; and of course I am tongue-tied as to the intelligence, till it comes from some public quarter: conjecture is free, however; and I cannot help thinking that the object here has been to secure the squadron in Freire’s interest. But that may not be: honour forbids it, I think; and the Chilian squadron 319 will not forget honour, while its present chief is even nominally its admiral.

Wednesday, 27th.—Several slight shocks to-day: a very severe one at ten o’clock A. M., and again at six P. M. My pleasant friend Mr. B. called to-day: he has announced his intended marriage with a lady of Chile, and the circumstances connected with it form rather an interesting point in the history of the progress of toleration in the country. In other marriages of the kind, the foreigners have generally changed their nominal religion for the sake of their brides, but my friend has more of the feelings of Richardson’s days; and though I do not mean to say that he is full-dressed in bag and wig, like Sir Charles Grandison, at six o’clock in the morning, or to compare the lady with the incomparable Clementina, his conduct in the matter has been firm and right for himself, and wise for the country he has now adopted. In this conduct he has been supported by the Director, against all superstitious and party opposition. Neither wishing his intended wife to change her faith, nor willing to change his own, he applied to the Bishop for a licence and dispensation to marry; this the prelate positively refused, unless Mr. B. would enter into the bosom of the church. The government now interfered, representing to the Bishop that the present state of the world demanded less bigotry, and the advantage of the country required the greatest degree of liberality towards strangers. Still His Grace was inexorable; when he received notice, that until he were more tractable, certain tithes and emoluments which in the late commotions the church had lost should not be restored. And now, after granting his dispensation thus reluctantly, all he has gained is the framing a concordat by the government, which will curtail his revenues, and diminish his power. He is a bigoted ambitious man, holding, to appearance, with the present government by various ties, the most efficient of which is certainly the partnership of Arcas, who has married his niece, with Rodriguez, but having stronger connections with all those who oppose O’Higgins, whether as partisans of the unfortunate Carreras, or 320 merely as discontented men. The disputes on this marriage have been violent; but Mr. B.’s firmness and temper have brought them to a proper conclusion. Many compromises and irregular ways, to save appearances for the church, were proposed to him; but he wished, not only for his own sake, but in order to establish an important precedent, to have the matter publicly and legally settled.

I intended to have returned to Quintero to-day, the launch of the Lautaro having been obligingly lent to me for that purpose. But, contrary to all experience at this time of the year, a strong northerly wind set in, which totally prevented it; and at night a heavy torrent of rain fell, which has done great damage by injuring the goods left exposed by the falling of the houses, and which has rendered the miserable encampments on the hills thoroughly wretched. Yet the people are rejoicing at it; because they say that the rain will extinguish the fire that causes the earthquake, and we shall have no more.

28th.—Notwithstanding the rain, which lasted till midnight, we have experienced no less than five shocks to-day. Superstition has been busy during this calamitous period; thinking the moment, no doubt, favourable for regaining something of the ground she has been losing for some time past. This day was appointed for the execution of a Frenchman and three Chilenos, for having gotten on board of a ship in the harbour during the night, and after dangerously wounding the master and chief mate, plundering it of a considerable sum. The priests have been stirring up the people to a rescue, declaring that the misfortunes of the times will be redoubled if good Catholics are thus to be executed for the sake of heretics. The government was apprised of these cabals, and surrounded the place of execution with soldiers enough to destroy the hope of rescue, and the execution took place quietly: nor is this the only clamour of the kind. Some attempts, among the lower clergy, have been made to stir up the people to attack the heretics generally, but without success; either because they are really indifferent, or because they do not recognise, 321 in the humane and courteous strangers among them, the horrible features and manners which it had pleased the priests to decorate the poor heretics with in their imaginary pictures.

I went on board the Admiral’s ship soon after breakfast to call on some of my friends, who, with their families, had taken refuge there on the night of the 19th, and to whom he had given up his cabin and lived himself in a tent on deck. The officers with whom I talked on the effect of the earthquake on board, told me, that, on feeling the shock and hearing the horrid noise, compounded of the aweful sound from the earth itself and that of the falling town, they had looked towards the land, and had seen only one cloud of dust and heard one dreadful shriek: Lord Cochrane and others threw themselves immediately into a boat, to go to the assistance, if help were still possible, of the sufferers. The rushing wave landed them higher than any boat had been before; and they then saw it retire frightfully, and leave many of the launches and other small vessels dry. They fully expected a return, and the probable drowning of the town; but the water came back no more, and the whole bottom of the bay has risen about three feet. Every one had some peculiar escape to relate. Poor Mrs. D. was alone, her father and husband having both gone out to spend the evening. Her servants fled from the house at the very first of the shock: she had two children, and could not carry them both out. She was with them in an upper room,—the infant was at her breast; she carried it to the cradle where her eldest lay, and leaning against the bed of one, with the other in her arms, she waited in mortal agitation to the end, when some one came to her relief, and carried her on board a vessel in the harbour.

After spending a very interesting forenoon on board the O’Higgins, listening to these tales of terror, I returned to Quintero in the Lautaro’s launch, which performed the voyage in three hours; and might have done it in less, but for the swell, the consequence of yesterday’s north wind.

29th.—Only one very sensible shock to-day.

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30th.—Before ten o’clock, and at two, shocks accompanied with an unusually loud noise: it is seldom that any shock is entirely without. Sometimes a sound like an explosion takes place before the shock; sometimes a kind of rumbling noise accompanies it; and we often hear the sound without being sensible of any motion, though the quicksilver in the decanter is perceptibly agitated.

Dec. 1st.—The shocks have been slight, but frequent. We rode to-day to the village of Placilla, through the estate of Maytens, and by the lake of Carices, which bounds the Quintero estate; the scenery is extremely beautiful, and the valley of the lake rich and fruitful. Placilla is a pleasant village, and puts me in mind of something in England: it is prettily situated on the little stream of La Ligua⁕62; the ranchos are of the better kind, and intermixed with orchards and wardens. Corn and pasture surround it, and the mountains rise at an agreeable distance. We found the people just coming from Mass, which had been celebrated in a ramada, built up in the church-yard; the church and parsonage, the only two brick-and-mortar edifices in the village, having been shaken down on the night of the 19th. The parsonage, however, is only partially destroyed. We found the curate in a little dirty room in a corner of the house, which I suppose is his study, with about a score of old books with greasy black leather covers; and in the corner a parcel of wool: after giving us some rum there, he led us over a heap of ruin to another corner-room but little damaged, where he set before us bread, butter, cheese, milk, and brandy, insisting that we should take luncheon with him; which we, nothing loath, consented to. I then went to settle accounts with the daughter of the judge of the village,—no less a personage than my washerwoman. But in ancient times the queens and princesses themselves washed for their fathers and brothers; and, I think, like the ladies here, the Princess Nausicaa took the foul clothes to the river-side to whiten. It must be confessed, that a 323 Chilena washerwoman has decidedly the advantage, in elegance of appearance, over our ladies of the suds at home; but whether it be for the advantage of the community that the daughters of the judges and justices should so employ themselves, I leave to graver persons to determine;—though I think there is something against it in a statute of the first year of George the Third’s reign, wherein the independence of judges is considered as necessary to their uprightness. But this is a long way from England.

⁕62 The little town of La Ligua, famous for horses, was destroyed on the 19th.

Dec. 2d.—We have felt but one shock early this morning. I remember exclaiming on the apathy of the people of Carracas, who returned to rebuild their houses when the earthquakes returned only once in six hours, or some such period; and that was after several months passed without any considerable convulsion. But man is the creature of habit; and though it is scarcely a fortnight since all around us, “temple and tower, fell to the ground,” and though we ourselves are living in tents and huts pitched round our ruined dwelling, we pursue our business, and even our amusements, as if nothing had happened, and lie down to sleep as confidently as if we had not lately seen the earth whereon we repose reeling to and fro. We have time too to turn to history and poetry, to compare the descriptions of men who did not feel the fearful times with the passing facts. One of these appears to me to have superior beauty and truth: Childe Harold is telling of the day of Thrasimene, when, in the fury of the battle, “an earthquake reeled unheededly away.”

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The southern winds are now come, and they often bring us such clouds of dust that our attempts to write are in vain; and our food would be defiled did we not retire to a little bower under the shelter of a hill,—where, in a dining-room of Nature’s own making, with its door and windows looking to the ocean complete, we eat and remain until the evening calm comes on, when we collect round a large fire⁕63 that we burn at the front of our tents, and talk till bed time. Don Benito is perhaps the best companion for such a time that we could have had: he has seen so much of every thing that we have never either seen or heard, that his tales are always new; and for memory, the Sultaness Scheherezade herself did not surpass him: so we have named his stories the “Peruvian Nights’ Enter­tainments;” and listen sometimes to the histories of the college of Quito, which prove that professors and students are on the same footing there that professors and students are, and have always been, in all times and countries; and love stories, that show that young hearts can feel, and confide, 325 and even break, on the skirts of the Andes, as in the valleys of Europe; and to histories of revolution, when every passion and affection is called into action. These are incomparably the most interesting: they are the materials out of which tragedy and romance are built. The two following were told last night.

Juana Maria Pola, of Santa Fé de Bogotá, was a woman whose husband, and brothers, and sons, were deeply engaged in the patriot cause. When Santa Fé was taken from the royalists, after the barracks of the infantry and cavalry had been seized, the patriots paused to collect numbers sufficient to attack the artillery; and then was that interval, when “the boldest held his breath for a time.” Juana Maria found her son among the troops, who were awaiting the rest. “What do you do here?” said she.—“I expect each moment to fight for La Patria.”—“Kneel down then, and take a mother’s blessing. We women will go on and receive the first fire, and over our bodies you shall march and take yonder cannon, and save your country.” She blessed her son, and rushed on with the foremost, and the day was theirs. From that day she held a captain’s pay and rank. But the royalists retook Santa Fé, and Juana Maria Pola was one of their first victims: she was led to the market-place and shot.

Jose Maria Melgado was a young man of good family and excellent education. He was an advocate at twenty-two years of age, and on the point of being married to the woman of his choice. When Pomacao arose, Melgado instantly joined him, and became judge-advocate to the patriot army. Shortly afterwards General Ramirez took the place which was then Pomacao’s head-quarters, and Melgado with others was taken and condemned to death. His family and friends, however, possessed such interest that he might have obtained his pardon, would he have submitted to the royal mercy, and embraced the royal cause. But to all that could be urged to that effect he appeared absolutely deaf, and persisted in returning no answer whatever. At length he was led out for execution; and the priest came to confess him, and even then and there 326 exhorted him to make his peace by a free and full acknowledgment of guilt, and to submit to the King; in which case he promised him a reprieve. He answered with great warmth, that it least of all became a priest to disturb the last moments of a dying man; and to call him back to worldly cares, when his soul had put them off: that it was nonsense to talk to him of a reprieve, for that his doom had been sealed, and he knew it; ay, even from the hour in which he had joined Pomacao, “A man,” said he, “should be careful how he changes his opinions or his party; but having once seriously considered and adopted them, he should never swerve from them. Besides, it is too late to talk to me of reprieve or change. What I have done, I have done; and I do not regret it. I thought it right to espouse the cause of the freedom of my country; I think so still, and am willing to die for it. It ill becomes you to harass my last hour!”—The priest withdrew: the adjutant being by, Melgado asked leave to smoke a segar, saying he was a little ruffled, and wished to calm himself. Leave being given, he looked round to the spectators, and said, “Will any body for God’s sake give me a segar?” A soldier handed him one: when he had half-smoked it he laid it down, saying he was ready, and felt calm again. The officer approached to bandage his eyes; he repulsed him, and said, “At least let me die with my eyes free.” He was told it was necessary: “Well, well, this will do;” and placing his hand across his eyes, he signified that he was ready, and received the shot!

There is a real enthusiasm in the people of South America. They are ignorant, oppressed, and, perhaps, naturally indolent and timid. But the cry of independence has gone forth: the star of freedom has appeared on their horizon,—not again to set at the bidding of Spain, not to be hushed by the hitherto powerful talisman of kingly authority. Armies have penetrated forests, and scaled mountains, and waded through morasses, only to hail each other as fellow-labourers in the same cause, as co-partners in that new-won freedom they are resolved to leave to their children. It may, perhaps, be 327 long ere their states may be settled; the forms of their government may long fluctuate, and perhaps much blood may yet be shed in the cause,—for, alas! what human good is there which has not been purchased by some evil? But never again will the iron sceptre of the mother-country be stretched out over these lands.

⁕63 I afterwards learned, that this fire being seen from Valparaiso night after night, occasioned the report that a volcano had burst out at Quintero.

Tuesday, December 3d.—The earth, which seemed to have resumed its stillness, has this day been violently convulsed. At half past three A. M.; at nine; at noon, a long and very severe shock with much noise; at two o’clock another; and at midnight a fifth, not inferior to those of the three first days, always excepting the first great one.

Wednesday, 4th.—Four severe shocks before eight o’clock this morning seemed to threaten a renewal of the first days after the 19th November; but since we have had only two slight ones to-day.

The tidings of Freire’s march from Conception is now public, as well as the news of the meeting of the provincial convention, and its censure of that of Santiago, first, for declaring itself the first representative assembly; secondly, for receiving the Director’s resignation and re-electing him: each of which acts is considered as illegal. It is whispered, that the Director talks of resigning. He is much hurt at what he calls, and perhaps feels, the ingratitude of Freire, to whom he was attached as one brave man to another, and whom he had always favoured. But Freire and his soldiers have carried on successfully a long and harassing war. They have not been paid; and it is said that Freire has another cause for resentment against the Director’s family, if not against himself. General Freire was, it appears, passionately attached to a young lady, an orphan, who became so by the event of the battle of Maypu; and his regard was returned, and he hoped to marry her;—when, as the lady was, by her orphan state, a ward of government, her hand was bestowed upon another; and thus, with her rich possessions, she was taken from her lover to reward, it was said, a deserving officer. But who could deserve more than Freire? He said nothing—but can he have forgotten this? Besides, another marriage was offered to him from 328 which he could not but turn with disgust, thus doubling the injury done to his feelings.

Less provocation than this has, ere now, armed nation against nation; and, in the half-civilised state of this country, private feelings will tell more in the sum total of the causes of civil wars than in more polished states,—where men are smoothed down to such a resemblance to each other, and trained to such a command over the external signs of passion, that individual emotions have seldom influence beyond a family circle.

General Freire is a native of this country; but his father was an European, either English or French. He was never in Europe, and has read nothing; but he has strong natural powers and sagacity, an honourable and generous spirit, and has devoted himself entirely to military conduct and affairs. I do grieve for Chile. In the state to which the country had advanced, every day of tranquillity was a gain, in spite of bad government. There are elements of good here, which only want time and tranquillity to grow; and it is cruel, that the misdemeanors of the ministers should stir up civil strife, that worst of plagues, and so retard the progress of all that the nation has been struggling for. I could address the republic in the words of an old poet:—

Thursday, 5th December.—We are again more quiet; only three slight shocks to-day.

Friday, 6th.—Only two shocks; but the highest wind I remember. A beautifully bright day; and the bay as lovely as possible, with the white waves dashing over the dark-blue surface. We were obliged to 329 take shelter in the grove, as the showers of sand penetrate the rancho in every direction, and nearly suffocate us. I have tied the branches of the quintral that hangs from the maytens to the shrubs below, and so made our wall firmer, and our window more shapely, that we may look out upon the sea and the hills; and having stuck four posts into the earth, and laid one of the fallen doors upon them, we are furnished with an admirable dining-table.

December 7th.—A slight shock at six A. M., immediately followed by a severe one: and another in the evening.

Lord Cochrane arrived in the Montezuma with Captain Winter and Messrs. Grenfell and Jackson. Glennie, who appeared to have been gaining ground for a fortnight, had another attack to-day.

Sunday, 8th.—A very severe shock.

Monday, 9th.—One very slight shock; the day dull and cloudy; the thermometer at 65° Fahrenheit. In the evening I had a pleasant walk to the beach with Lord Cochrane; we went chiefly for the purpose of tracing the effects of the earthquake along the rocks. At Valparaiso, the beach is raised about three feet, and some rocks are exposed, which allows the fishermen to collect the clam, or scollop shell-fish, which were not supposed to exist there before. We traced considerable cracks in the earth all the way between the house and the beach, about a mile, and the rocks have many evidently recent rents in the same direction: it seemed as if we were admitted to the secrets of nature’s laboratory. Across the natural beds of granite, there are veins from an inch to a line in thickness. Most of these are quite filled up with white shiny particles, I suppose quartz, and in some places they even project a little from the face of the rock; others only begin to have their sides coated, and have their edges rounded, but are not nearly filled. The cracks of this earthquake are sharp and new, and easily to be distinguished from older ones: they run, besides, directly under the neighbouring hills, where the correspondent openings are much wider; and in some instances the earth has actually parted and fallen, leaving the stony base of the hills bare. On the beach, although it was high water, many rocks, 330 with beds of muscles, remain dry, and the fish are dead; which proves that the beach is raised about four feet at the Herradura. Above these recent shells, beds of older ones may be traced at various heights along the shore; and such are found near the summits of some of the loftiest hills in Chile, nay, I have heard, among the Andes themselves. Were these also forced upwards from the sea, and by the same causes? On our return, I picked up on the beach, in a little cove where there is a colony of fishermen, a quantity of sand, or rather of iron dust, which is very sensible to the magnet. It exactly resembles some that was brought me from the Pearl Islands lately. Here the rocks are of grey granite, and the soil is sand mixed with vegetable mould, and layers of pebbles and sea-shells; some of these upwards of 50 feet above the present beach. Nothing can be more lovely than the evening and morning scenery here. This evening, as we returned to the house, the snowy Andes were decked in hues of rose and vermilion; and the nearer hills in dazzling purple, streaming to the ocean, where the sun was setting in unclouded radiance.

Tuesday, 10th.—While sitting at dinner with Lord Cochrane, Messrs. Jackson, Bennet, and Orelle, we were startled by the longest and severest shock since the first great earthquake of the 19th November. Some ran out of the house⁕64 (for we now inhabit a part of it), and I flew to poor Glennie’s bed-side: it had brought on severe hemorrhage, which I stopped with laudanum. Soon afterwards we had a slighter shock, and again at half past three a severe one. The wind was most violent, the thermometer at 65°.

⁕64 The portion of the house built of wooden frame-work and plaistered stood perfectly, only the plaister was shaken off.

11th.—A loud explosion and severe shock at half past seven A. M.; another at ten; and then two, very slight.

12th.—A violent shock at noon, a slight one afterwards. As we were riding home to-day from a little tour by Valle Alegri and the Carices, we found a long strip or bed of sea-weed, and another of 331 muscles, dead and very offensive; they had never been within reach of the tide since the 19th November. It was as fine a day as I ever remember.

and as they stole through the woods of odoriferous shrubs, conveyed an almost intoxicating feeling to the sense. I cannot conceive a finer climate than that of Chile, or one more delightful to inhabit; and, now I am accustomed to the trembling of the earth, even that seems a less evil than I could have imagined. Old Purchas’s quaint description of Chile is as true as it appears singular from its antiquated garb.—“The poor valley,” says he, speaking of Chile, “is so hampered between the tyrannical meteors and elements, as that shee often quaketh with feare, and in these chill fevers shaketh off and loseth her best ornaments. Arequipa, one of her fairest townes, by such disaster in the yeere 1582, fell to the ground. And sometimes the neighbour hilles are infected with this pestilent fever, and tumble down as dead in the plain; thereby so amazing the fearful rivers, that they runne out of their channels to seeke new, or else stand still with wonder, and the motive heate failing, fall into an uncouth tympany, their bellies swelling into spacious and standing lakes: the tides, seeing this, hold back their course, and dare not approach their sometime beloved streames by divers miles’ distance, so that betwixt these two stools the ships come to ground indeed. The sicke earth thus having her mouth stopped, and her stomache overlaied, forceth new mouthes, whence she vomiteth streams of oppressing waters. I speake not of the beastes and men, which, in these civil warres of nature, must needes bee subject to devouring miserie.”

Dec. 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th.—There have been four shocks each day, accompanied by much noise; and we have heard several explosions, without feeling any motion, like the noise of heavy guns at sea. I have been occupied in reading San Martin’s accusations of Lord Cochrane, and His Lordship’s reply. The accusations are as frivolous as they are base; and are exactly calculated to excite and 332 keep up that jealousy which his being a foreigner and a nobleman, and his great talents, have excited. Presented to the government of Santiago while His Lordship was absent, and by envoys whose private malignity added to every accusation all the force of hints and inuendos, they struck at his honour and his personal safety equally. Happily there were some feelings which prevented the Director from giving credit to some of the charges, and he knew that documents existed which disproved others; and with this knowledge, and these feelings, he had entreated Lord C. not to answer San Martin immediately on his arrival, lest such an answer as he might give should involve the governments in contention or war. Now, however, that San Martin has retired from the government of Peru, and that no evil can arise to the public from a refutation of the atrocious calumnies he has taken pains to spread here and to send into foreign countries, Lord C. has addressed a letter to him, not only exculpating himself, but exposing the baseness, cruelty, and cowardice of San Martin.⁕65 Had the letter nothing to do with Lord Cochrane’s justification or San Martin’s accusation, the picture it presents of the conduct of the war in Peru would render it one of the most curious documents that has yet appeared before the public concerning the affairs of South America.

⁕65 See the Sketch of the History of Chile prefixed to this part of the journal, particularly from p. 83. to the end.

Dec. 17th.—Mr. Grenfell arrived from the port to-day, bearing important news. General Freire has advanced as far as Talca, and a division of the army of Santiago is ordered to be in readiness to meet him. The marines belonging to the squadron, with Major Hyne at their head, marched towards the city last night, by orders from the minister of marine, to reinforce the Director’s troops. Many arbitrary orders have also been issued to the squadron, so that the Admiral has resolved to go and resume the command to-night. The Galvarino was ordered to be in readiness for sea; it is rumoured to take some important personage, perhaps San Martin, on board, and so convey him to Buenos Ayres, or some other place of safety, 333 imagining that his retreat by the Andes would be cut off. Some time ago the same order was given, and it was supposed for the same purpose in fact, although it was to be executed by the vessel running along the coast, and taking up the passenger or passengers at the mouth of the Maypu. But neither then nor now would the squadron hear of her sailing, having a claim on her, as she was pledged to be sold to pay the officers and men. The Lautaro has accordingly loaded her guns, and is to sink her if she attempts to move without the Admiral’s express permission. The fort has loaded its guns also, but this the squadron may laugh at. His Lordship’s resuming the command will no doubt restore every thing to order.

The party in the South have not been inactive by sea any more than by land. Captain Casey, who was captain of the port at Talcahuana, has the command of a large vessel which arrived off Valparaiso last night, but did not anchor. She sent a boat on board the O’Higgins, it is conjectured with the design of engaging the squadron to abandon the cause of the Director, and to act in opposition to the government, whose sworn subjects every officer and man are. But if such were the design, it has failed. Captain Casey has proceeded to Coquimbo, where he is likely to meet with more success. That port, like those of the South, is grievously injured by the reglamento; the troops are equally indignant at the non-payment of their wages; and if I may trust the reports brought by cattle-dealers and other itinerant persons, they are all ready to revolt. The troops at Quillota and Aconcagua have refused to march to the capital; and though the recruiting is going on in all the neighbouring districts, it is doubtful on which side the new troops will engage. We begin to feel the anxieties preparatory to a civil war. Our pistols are cleaned; we have prepared a store of bullets: we feel an unusual uneasiness on account of the Admiral, who is riding to town with only his one peon.

Wednesday, December 18th.—Three shocks to-day, all slight.

Thursday, 19th.—One long shock, with a very loud noise, and several slight shocks.

Friday, 20th.—Some very slight shocks; none of which I felt, being 334 on horseback at the time. Unless the shocks are very violent, or the sound very loud, the horses and mules do not appear to feel them.

I rode to Valparaiso: the morning was dull and drizzling. I cannot describe the effect of such a day on the scenery between Quintero and Concon, by the long beach of nine miles: on one side the sand-hills with not a sign of vegetation, on the other a furious surf; both seeming interminable, and being lost in the thick air; or if a breeze now and then blows the haze aside, the distant dreary points of land seem suspended far above the visible horizon, and one goes on with a kind of desperate eagerness to see what will be the end. I was in a fine humour for moralising. Earthquake under me, civil war around me; my poor sick relation apparently dying; and my kind friend, my only friend here indeed, certainly going to leave the country, at least for a time.⁕66 All this left me with nothing but the very present to depend on; and, like the road I was travelling, what was to come was enveloped in dark clouds, or at best afforded most uncertain glimpses of the possible future.

In such cases the mind is apt to make a sport to itself of its very miseries. I more than once on the way caught myself smiling over the fanciful resemblances I drew between human life and the scene I was in; or at the fatality which had brought me, an Englishwoman, whose very characteristic is to be the most domestic of creatures, almost to the antipodes, and placed me among all the commotions of nature and of society. But if not a sparrow falls unheeded to the ground, I may feel sure that I am not forgotten. Often am I obliged to have recourse to this assurance, to make me bear evils and inconveniences that none, not the meanest, in my own happy country would submit to without complaint.

The appearance of Mr. Miers at the little rock near the mouth of the river dissipated all my misty reflections, however. He had come to show me the new ford, the old one being now dangerous; and we had a pleasant ride together to his house, where we breakfasted. I 335 had been an hour and a quarter in riding the twelve miles, including the ford; which takes a long time both to find and to cross, the river, though shallow, being wider and more rapid than the Thames at London-bridge. Mr. Miers accompanied me to the port; and after transacting some business (for some of the merchants do appear in the day time at their warehouses, or the scites of them), and changing my riding-dress, I went on board the O’Higgins to dinner.

I find that although Lord Cochrane has twice tendered his resignation to the government, it has not been accepted. But he is not the less resolved on a temporary absence. After dinner, as I was waiting for a boat to pay a visit on board another ship, and leaning over the taffel-rail of the frigate, musing on all the discomforts of my situation, and the dreariness of my prospects, especially if the rains should come before Glennie was able to move to some warm dry house, I felt a heaviness of heart that few occurrences of my life, and many a painful one I have abided, had occasioned. I saw no prospect of comfort; and suddenly it came from a quarter where I had not expected, indeed where I should not have dared to expect it. Lord Cochrane came up to me where I stood, and gently calling my attention, said, that as he was going to sail soon from this country, I should take a great uneasiness from his mind if I would go with him. He could not bear, he said, to leave the unprotected widow of a British officer thus on the beach, and cast away as it were in a ruined town, a country full of civil war! I replied, I could not leave my sick relation,—I had promised his mother to watch him. “Nor do I ask you to do so,” answered Lord Cochrane. “No, he must go too, and surely he will be as well taken care of with us, as you could do it alone.” I could not answer—I could not look my thanks; but if there is any one who has had an oppressive weight on the heart, that seemed too great either to bear or to obtain relief for, and who has had that weight suddenly and kindly removed, then they may understand my sensations,—then they may guess at a small part of the gratitude with which my heart was filled, but which I could not utter.

⁕66 See Lord Cochrane’s address to the Chilenos hereafter in the Journal.

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21st.—One great and several lesser shocks to-day. I find my English friends what may be called comfortably settled now, on board the several vessels in the harbour, where they have either hired the whole or part of the cabins, by way of dwelling-houses. The governor of Valparaiso and his family have the sheds of the dockyard fitted up, and are living there. Many of the richer inhabitants are gone to Santiago; the poor and middling classes still continue encamped on the neighbouring hills. In clearing the rubbish in the town, many more dead are found than it was at first supposed there could be. Some of the merchants have erected tents and wooden houses in the broad parts of the streets, where they sleep at night to guard their goods; but no one ventures to pass the night in his house, except Madame Pharoux, the pretty wife of the keeper of the French hotel, who still appears at the bar smiling, and only shrugging her shoulders a little at things “inouies à Paris;” but for the rest, profiting, I believe, by the commotion that has extinguished most kitchen fires but her own. She has been fortunate, and deserves it.

22d.—Only three slight shocks. The business of preparing for my voyage still keeps me in Valparaiso: I pass the day packing on shore, eating with my different friends afloat; and I sleep in a corner of the cabin where Mrs. D. and her family have found refuge, on board the O’Higgins. Well does Shakspeare say, “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows:” we are all, English and Chilenos, men, women, and children, brought together in a way that nothing but the miseries we have all felt could account for.

23d.—A few very slight shocks, felt as perceptibly on board as on shore. I went down to Quintero with my goods in the Lautaro’s launch; we were four hours and a half on the voyage. My arrival was a matter of some importance at Quintero. I had laughingly told my friends there, that I was determined we should have a plum-pudding on Christmas-day, and that I would return with sufficient materials, and in good time to make it. Accordingly, the first things thought of were raisins and sugar, spices and sweetmeats; and I 337 found that I had not been singular in remembering the promise, for I was greeted on my return with a gay little poem, by Mr. Jackson, on the subject; and to us, who never see a new book, or only by chance, when an American trader brings out the Philadelphia reprint of a new London or Edinburgh novel (the Pirate is the last we have seen), a new poem, even of a hundred or half a hundred lines, on any subject, is a literary treat, and is valued accordingly. At any rate, I am sure no birth-day ode, saving, perhaps, the celebrated probationary odes, ever gave the readers more pleasure than our pudding rhapsody; and as the walls of Thebes arose to the sounds of Amphion’s lyre, so my plums were picked and my pudding compounded to the rhymes of Mr. Jackson’s verse. I can be delighted with every thing, now I am relieved from my anxiety and I have a prospect of seeing home once more.

December 25th.—The perfect stillness of the earth yesterday little prepared us for the tremendous shock we experienced at eight o’clock this morning. It was only not so severe as that of the 19th November, and was followed by several slighter ones; but nothing alarming occurred after the first. We are all busy with preparations for leaving “this delightful land,” for such it is in spite of its earthquakes. I should feel less regret at leaving it if I saw it prosperous and at peace; but every hour brings fresh reports of wars and rumours of wars. The people of Coquimbo have openly thrown off their allegiance to the Director; and have convened a provincial congress, and mean to oppose the government of Santiago by every means in their power.

26th.—Only two shocks to-day.

27th.—Four shocks. We learn to-day that the greatest consternation prevails in the city. Arcas’s bills are said to be at a discount of 40 per cent.: he himself refuses them; and we hear that an officer of distinction has been imprisoned on account of some dispute that arose on the subject, in which Arcas behaved extremely ill. Be that as it may, the government shows its alarm by having recourse to petty expedients. In order to appear strong and rich, orders have 338 been issued concerning the rebuilding of Valparaiso, and magnificent plans talked of. But the grand stroke is the order given to the Admiral to place the O’Higgins and Valdivia under the charge of the commandant of marine, in order, as it is said, to be repaired, and to make a store-ship of the Lautaro. This is intended to answer no less than three ends. The people are to be deluded by seeing that the government has confidence enough to undertake so heavy an expense as the repair of the two ships at this time. Lord Cochrane is deprived of even the slightest authority; and as they have not accepted his resignation, he is, they flatter themselves, a kind of state-prisoner; and I doubt not would, the moment they dared, be sacrificed to the same private malignity which instigated the charges laid against him in April. He remains in the port until he has put it out of the power of the Lautaro to put to sea, by causing her to strike her masts, &c. And he has hoisted his flag on board the schooner Montezuma, the only thing now serviceable at Valparaiso; the Galvarino, with not an Englishman in her, having at length sailed by his permission, on the request of the Director, for some secret service. Those who planned this blow forgot the schooner, I presume. Thank God, he will soon be beyond the reach of the ill-treatment of those for whom he has done so much! All the seamen are paid off. The officers only are retained, and on full pay. The arrears have been also paid, excepting to the crew of the Montezuma, and part of that of the Lautaro. The troops are dissatisfied; and I suspect that nothing but the personal respect felt for the Director still holds his wretched government together.

28th.—Some slight shocks felt to-day.

Sunday, 29th.—The earth has been remarkably quiet these last twenty-four hours.

Lord Cochrane arrived, bringing with him the D——s, and all their family. They had taken refuge on board the O’Higgins, and now the ship is dismantled they have not where to lay their heads: here there is at least shelter among the tents and ranchos, and quiet and kindness.

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We are a motley company it must be confessed; and a strange locality we present. The main part of the house is lying flat before us. All the wood-work has been removed; and the whited walls, nearly entire, of the two large rooms are lying flat upon the earth before the windows of the still habitable part of the dwelling. A little round vestibule still stands, occupied as a secretary’s room; and there some one or two, or more, of the gentlemen sleep: then there is a room, by courtesy called mine, in which Glennie, my maid, and I, all live; besides all my clothes, books, and furniture, i.e. what the room will hold; the rest is in the open air before it. Next stands His Lordship’s room; where he sleeps on a sofa, where all his business is transacted, and where, when the wind renders it impossible to dine in the rancho, we all eat. It serves, besides, as a pantry. Then Mrs. D——’s room, where she, her husband, two children, and two female servants, all live: two tents near the dining rancho shelter some of the servants. Mr. Bennet, commonly called Don Benito, has pitched his tent in a little grove at a distance: the rancho shelters, in one corner, our prisoner Don Fausto; and a very strange collection of servants and idlers take refuge in the half-standing kitchen and cellar. Such are the inhabitants, and such the present situation of the house of Quintero! Persons brought together by the state of the country, that no other possible combination of circumstances could have forced into any thing like intimacy, as different from each other in education, habits, and manners, as they are in rank and character, and only holding together by the common necessity that leaves them no choice; and that house in ruins which was not quite finished, and had been built with a view to comfort and elegance!

Tuesday, Dec. 31st, 1822.—The earth has been pretty quiet during these last days. Once or twice in the course of the day, and generally as often in the night, there are sensible shocks, and still oftener loud noises; but nothing alarming. Our preparations for leaving the country afford little time for attention to much else. We hear, however, that the disaffection to the existing government is daily spreading, especially to the northward; and that the Coquimbo 340 convention is doing its utmost to raise money &c., and to oppose O’Higgins, and has actually sent 20,000 dollars to Freire.

After dinner we generally walk to the sea-side to enjoy the prospect and the music of the sea, which comes, “like the joys that are past, sweet and mournful to the soul.” To-day we sat long on the promontory of the Herradura, to see the last sun of 1822 go down into the Pacific, and we watched how long his rays gilded the tops of the Andes after he himself was hid in ocean. The sea was beating nearly round us; as far as the eye could reach, there was but the ruins of one human habitation; the deep shadows of evening concealed the narrow traces of cultivation, that here and there encroach on the wild thickets, bounded by the mountains; the cattle had retired to the woods; and nothing living but the night-birds flitting round us, told that we still belonged to a living race. My thoughts naturally went back to times when life and its enjoyments were young; when I had hearts that sympathised, friends that felt with me. Nay, even the last sun of the last year went down with hope, almost with confidence, for me. But now, the generous feeling of almost a stranger, alone bestows a momentary comfort on me. Misery and death have been busy with me: my best hopes have been disappointed; and I have to seek new interests, ere life itself can be otherwise than burthensome.

My companion at length roused me to recollection, by naming the hour. A silent walk home, with a not unpleasant feeling of sad remembrance, ended this, perhaps the most disastrous, year of my life.

January 1st, 1823.—Well might Young exclaim, “Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep!” This fine, fresh, fair morning has awakened me to life, and light, and hope, and at least the certainty that come what will, this year cannot be so disastrous as the last. I have now nothing to lose, and every common enjoyment must be a gain to me.

The inconvenience of dwelling with so many people is beginning to increase, as our packages are made up. Therefore Lord 341 Cochrane has ordered some tents to be pitched on the sea-shore; whither the goods will be taken immediately, and at least part of the family will also go. I have been busy in my vocation, and have the pleasure to see my invalid gradually improving in health.

2d.—At length we have divided the enormous party of Quintero. The dining-room is carried down and placed by the tents; and the D——s are left in quiet possession of the house, along with the overseer of the estate, who has established a salting-house here, where he has cured about ten thousand dollars’ worth of beef, as fine as any Irish beef I ever saw. Our new settlement forms a line along the sea-beach in the following order: first, the dining rancho nearest to the hill, where a fisherman’s hut serves as a kitchen, and where there is a well of sweet water; next, stands a very large tent, across which a screen is placed, thus forming two apartments for Glennie and me; Lord Cochrane inhabits the second tent; the third is appropriated to packages, and a guard sleeps there; the fourth is Mr. Jackson’s; the fifth, Don Fausto’s; the sixth, Carillo’s; and Don Benito has pitched his out of the line behind the rest: so that now every person has his own separate apartment; and every body may meet the rest in the rancho when it is agreeable. The sea reaches to within a few yards of our tents, rolling smoothly in, just opposite, and breaking a little to the left round the rocks and the wreck of the Aquila, one of the Admiral’s Guayaquil prizes. The shell-fish have already taken possession of her, within and without; and we are frequently indebted to that circumstance for one of our greatest dainties, the large eatable barnacle, peculiar in Chile to the bay of Quintero, and known by the name of pico. I have sent my maid to Concon to take care of Mrs. Miers’s children, as she was of no use here; and I did not think the sort of Robin Hood life we are leading, the most advisable thing in the world for a young good-looking girl. She will be safe and happy where she is.

January 3d.—To-day I set up the lithographic press in Lord Cochrane’s tent, to print the following address to the Chilenos; which we hope to get ready to-morrow:—

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We have also another of the same date to print, addressed to the merchants of England and other nations trading to the Pacific. It is as follows:—

Mr. C——, who understands the management of the press better than any of our party, has kindly volunteered to come and assist in taking the impressions from the stone.

I like this wild life we are living, half in the open air; every thing is an incident; and as we never know who is to come, or what is to happen next, we have the constant stimulus of curiosity to bear us to the end of every day. The evening walk is the only thing we are sure of. Sometimes we trace the effects of the recent earthquake, and fancy they lead to marks of others infinitely more violent, and at 344 periods long anterior to our knowledge. Often we have little other object than the mere pleasure of the earth, and air, and sky. Sometimes we go to the garden, where every thing is thriving beyond all hope. And we are busy collecting seeds of the wild plants of the country, though it is too early in the season to find many ripe.

5th.—We have again lost the Admiral for a few days. The press is removed to my tent, where we are more free to work at all hours, without interrupting business or being interrupted by it; and we might flatter ourselves that we were going on extremely well, were it not that the ink sent by the makers of presses for exportation is so very bad that we are obliged to renew the writing on the stone very frequently, so that we might have multiplied the copies almost as quickly with the pen.

9th.—We have been surprised at seeing a large ship come into the bay, and stand off and on for some hours. Every thing now awakens suspicion; and as the Admiral has been longer absent than was expected, and that without writing, we are beginning to be a little alarmed on his account.

The public news shows, I think, that the event of the present struggle must be decided ere long. Freire has reached the Maule, only six days’ march from Santiago; and though the Director protested at first that he never would give up Rodriguez, it appears now, that not only the minister, but the measures—not only Rodriguez, but the reglamento, have been sacrificed, too late, in all probability, to save the rest. The will to defend the abuses has been shown, the weakness that was forced to abandon them proved, and the respect and the love for the old government proportionably diminished. I am very sorry for the Director,—I believe truly that he meant well, and I cannot forget his great kindness to myself.⁕67

⁕67 I cannot help referring here to the 1st chapter of the 2d book of Delolme on the Constitution of England, from the paragraph beginning, “If we cast our eyes on all the states that were ever free,” to the end of the quotation from Machiavel’s History of Florence, as rather a history than a description of the events that have taken place in Chile since 1810, when the faction of the Carreras led the way to all that has happened since.

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10th.—Lord Cochrane returned to us in the Montezuma;—every thing is finally settled as to our departure. The brig Colonel Allen is to come to Quintero, where we are all to embark; and in less than a week we expect to be under weigh. All hands are now employed; the overseer’s people on the hill salting beef, the carpenters nailing up boxes, people cutting strips of hide for cordage, secretaries writing, the press at work, sailors fitting spars across the light logs, called balsas, to make a raft to ship the goods with⁕68; and amidst all this, people coming and going, foreigners and English, to take leave of the Admiral; and some, I am sorry to say, for the purpose of being, and showing themselves, ungrateful. Men for whom he had done every thing, both in the Chilian service and long before they joined it,—nay, who owed their very bringing up at all to him, reproach him for their own disappointed vanity or desire of gain; as if he had the dispensing of honorary titles or distinctions, or the disposal of the public funds. He did for them on his return from Acapulco what he did for himself,—he obtained a solemn promise from the ministers both of pay and of reward.⁕69 If any of the officers have now made a private bargain for their own personal advantage, they best know on what terms they have made it. However, some in this country, and those among the best, have, I really think, a sincere regard for the Admiral; but I believe in friendship as in love, “ce n’est pas tout d’être aimé; il faut être apprécié:” and I scarcely know one here who is capable of appreciating him justly; so that even the very homage he receives is unworthy of him. Oh, why is he not at home!

17th.—At length every thing is embarked, and we are ready to sail. This morning I walked with Lord Cochrane to the tops of most of the hills immediately between the house of the Herradura and the sea: perhaps it may be the last time he will ever tread these grounds, for which he was doing so much; and I shall, in all probability, 346 never again see the place, where, in spite of much suffering, I have also enjoyed much pleasure. We gathered many seeds and roots, which I hope to see springing up in my own land, to remind me of this, where I have met with a kindness and a hospitality never to be forgotten.⁕70 As to the Admiral, he must always feel that if he has not been well requited, he has done good to the great cause of independence; he has done good also to the people of this country, by giving them the first ideas of many improvements in their agriculture, their arts, and even their government, all of which will produce fruit, though it may be late. And, on this ground, his recollections of Chile can never be otherwise than agreeable.—On returning to the tents we found several friends assembled to take leave: the tents, indeed, had been struck, and nothing remained but the rancho, where we dined most cheerfully, though rudely enough; the servants having carried every thing but a few knives and plates on board. However, we cut forks out of pieces of wood, and passed the knives round; and, with a roast dressed in the open air, and potatoes baked in the ashes, we made our last dinner at the Herradura.

⁕70 While this sheet was in the press one of the bulbous roots, called in Chile Mancaya, flowered in the garden of Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, at Hammersmith; it is now called the Cyrtanthia Cochranea.

18th.—Every body slept on board last night; and this morning was spent in getting in wood and water. At six o’clock, Captain Crosbie went on board the Montezuma to haul down Lord Cochrane’s⁕71 flag, and thus formally to give up the naval command in Chile. One gun was fired, and the flag was brought on board the Colonel Allen to His Lordship, who was standing on the poop: he received it without apparent emotion, but desired it to be taken care of. Some of those around him appeared more touched than he was.⁕72 Under that flag he had often led them to victory, and always to honour. Quintero is fading fast behind us; and God knows if we may any of us ever see it again.

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Lord Cochrane had adopted Chile as his country: its government has used him ill; and now at a time when, if he had been so minded, revenge on the authors of the ill-usage he has suffered would have been easy, he withdraws. I know that it has been thought right that in civil commotions every honest man should take part, in order that the wiser might bring matters to an accommodation. This is good for the natives of a country, but is no ways to be desired from a stranger, especially a martial man of high reputation and rank, who might be supposed to have the inclination as well as the power to set up his own authority. In this case, having done every thing to deliver the country from a foreign enemy, and to secure its national independence, it is wisdom, it is generosity, to stand aloof and let the seed of the soil be the arbiters of the concerns of the soil. Law and justice themselves can but guard the citizens from external evils, but may not meddle in their family affairs.

From the 18th to the 21st we had weather very uncomfortable, and a disagreeable sea; but this morning (22d) we descried the island of Mas-afuera about seven leagues off, right a‑head, through a fog; and shortly after bore up for Juan Fernandez, where we were to complete the water for the ship. I should have been sorry, indeed, to have left the Pacific without seeing the very island of Alexander Selkirk, the prototype of that most interesting of all heroes of romance (excepting Don Quixote), Robinson Crusoe.

24th.—Yesterday and to-day in sight of Juan Fernandez, and working for it, but could not reach it till near sunset. It is the most picturesque I ever saw, being composed of high perpendicular rocks wooded nearly to the top, with beautiful valleys; and the ruins of the little town in the largest of these heighten the effect. It was too late to go ashore when we anchored; but it was a bright moonlight, and we staid long on deck to-night, admiring the extraordinary beauty of the scene.

25th.—Before daylight this morning Lord Cochrane and most of the other gentlemen went ashore to climb to the high ridge behind the port, and look over to the other side of the island, where it is 348 reported there are some plains and arable land. I watched them ascend up a very high peak, and then went ashore with Glennie and others to walk about and dine; I found His Lordship’s party returned from their walk much disappointed. The boatswain of the brig, who had been for several days on the island some years before, had undertaken to guide them; but instead of leading them to the ridge of the highest land, he only conducted them with much labour to the top of a fearful pinnacle, whose height is about 1500 feet; but as it is surrounded by still higher rocks, nothing more was to be seen from it than from below. Lord Cochrane brought from the summit a piece of heavy black porous lava; and under that he found some dark hardened clay full of cells, the inside of which appear slightly vitrified. The island seems chiefly composed of this porous lava; the strata of which, being crossed at right angles by a very compact black lava, dip on the eastern side of the island about 22°, and on the west side 16°, pointing to the centre of the island as an apex. The valleys are exceedingly fertile, and watered by copious streams, which occasionally form small marshes, where the panke grows very luxuriantly, as well as water-cress and other aquatic plants. The soil is generally of a reddish brown: there are several small hills and banks of bright-red clay; and I thought I found puzzolano, and some fragments of coarse pumice-stone. The little valley where the town is, or rather was, is exceedingly beautiful. It is full of fruit trees, and flowers, and sweet herbs, now grown wild: near the shore it is covered with radish and sea-side oats. The colony of Juan Fernandez had been used as a place of confinement for state-prisoners. I do not know in what precise year it was founded; but it could not have been long before the revolution in Chile, as I find over the door of the ruined church the following inscription:—

A small fort was situated on the sea-shore, of which there is now nothing visible but the ditches and part of one wall. Another, 349 of considerable size for the place, is on a high and commanding spot: it contained barracks for soldiers, which, as well as the greater part of the fort, are ruined; but the flag-staff, front wall, and a turret are standing; and at the foot of the flag-staff lies a very handsome brass gun, cast in Spain A.D. 1614. A few houses and cottages are still in tolerable condition, though most of the doors, windows, and roofs have been taken away or used as fuel, by whalers and other ships touching here.

The colony was in a tolerably flourishing condition for some years, and the exiles had found means to cultivate vegetables and fruit, which thrive so well here that many of the kinds have become wild, to such an extent as, by supplying ships, to obtain additional comforts in their exile. Some jealousy was, however, entertained against this, and the banished men were forbidden the indulgence. The cultivation of the grape, which was found to thrive wonderfully, was also prohibited; and dogs were sent over to the island to hunt the cattle out of the woods, in order that the settlers might not become too independent. Still, however, the settlement was kept up, and ships frequently touched there, especially for water, which is much better and more abundant than at Valparaiso, and keeps well at sea; but the island, no longer permitted to raise provisions, was victualled from Chile. At length, in the middle of 1821, an insurrection against the governor, headed by one Brandt, a North American, took place; in which it was believed that one of the unhappy Carreras of Viña a la Mar was implicated. This young man had been banished to the island for some political crime, and was killed in the very first of the disturbances; so that it is extremely doubtful whether he had any thing to do with the conspiracy. I have heard, indeed, that one of the exiles, who was jealous of him, not without reason, took the opportunity afforded by the disturbance of revenging himself. The insurgents having confined the governor and overcome the garrison, seized the boats of an American whaler, which had touched there, with the intention of going on board the 350 ship, and so escaping to some foreign land. The whaler left her boats, and brought news of the state of the island to Valparaiso.⁕73

This insurrection of Brandt’s determined the government of Chile to abandon the settlement. The garrison was consequently withdrawn, the fort dismantled, and the place rendered as far as possible unfit for future inhabitants. Nevertheless, early this year the government of Chile published a manifesto, setting forth its claim to the place, and forbidding any persons whatsoever to settle there, or to kill the cattle, or take the wood of the island. After walking about a long time among the ruined cottages and gardens, I returned to the place where I left my companions, and found that the young men had pitched on a most charming spot for a dining room. Under the shade of two enormous fig-trees there is a little circular space bounded by a clear rivulet, which in its rapid descent bounds from stone to stone, and mixes its murmurs with those of the breeze and the distant ocean. Here I found Lord Cochrane and the rest seated round a table-cloth of broad fig-leaves covered with such provision as the ship afforded, eked out with fruit of the island hardly yet ripe. Our claret was cooled in a little linny in the stream, and the decorations of our bower were the rich foliage and fruit of the overhanging trees, and the flowers of the opposite bank, on which stands the castle, reflected in the broken silver of the water that gurgled past.

After dinner I walked with Lord Cochrane to the valley called Lord Anson’s Park. On our way we found numbers of European shrubs and herbs,

And in the half-ruined hedges, which denote the boundaries of former fields, we found apple, pear, and quince trees, with cherries almost ripe. The ascent is steep and rapid from the beach even in the valleys, and the long grass was dry and slippery, so that it rendered the walk 351 rather fatiguing; and we were glad to sit down under a large quince tree on a carpet of balm bordered with roses, now neglected, and rest, and feast our eyes with the lovely view before us. Lord Anson has not exaggerated the beauty of the place, or the delights of the climate; we were rather early for its fruits; but even at this time we have gathered delicious figs, and cherries, and pears, that a few more days’ sun would have perfected. I was quite sorry to leave our station in the park, and return to the landing-place to embark for the dark close ship.

The landing-place is also the watering-place; and there a little jetty is thrown out, formed of the beach pebbles, making a little harbour for the boats, which lie there close to the fresh water, which comes conducted by a pipe, so that with a hose the casks may be filled, without landing, with the most delicious water. Along the beach some old guns are sunk to serve as moorings for vessels, which are all the safer the nearer in-shore they lie: violent gusts of wind often blow from the mountain for a few minutes. During our absence, we found that Glennie had been calculating the height of the island, which he makes about 3000 feet.

⁕73 In consequence of this the British Commodore sent notices to the ports of Brazil and the Spanish Colonies, to prevent English merchantmen from touching at Juan Fernandez, lest the exiles should seize them and so escape.

26th.—I went ashore with Lord Cochrane’s party early to-day, as I wished to make some sketches, and, if possible, to climb up some of the hills in search of plants; therefore, when they all resumed their scheme for reaching the highest point in order to see the other side of the island, I remained behind. They were soon out of sight: the vessel was far from hearing; no boat was ashore; and I was left alone among the ruins of the once-flourishing colony. I did not long stay there; but walked, or rather crawled—for the steepness of the land rendered it necessary often to depend partly on my hands in the ascent—to a place where the marks of cultivation led me to search for the herbs or trees which might have been imported; and there I found the vine grown wild over a pretty considerable track; pot-herbs, particularly parsley, I found abundance of; and such beds of sweet mint spread along the water-courses, that I think it must be native; so are the strawberry and the winter cherry.

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And now I had reached a lonely spot, where no trace of man could be seen, and whence I seemed to have no communication with any living thing. I had been some hours alone in this magnificent wilderness; and though at first I might begin with exultation to cry—

yet I very soon felt that utter loneliness is as disagreeable as unnatural; and Cowper’s exquisite lines again served me—

And I repeated over and over the whole of the poem, till I saw two of my companions of the morning coming down the hill, when I hurried to meet them, as if I had been really “out of humanity’s reach.”

The two were His Lordship and Mr. Shepherd, who having reached the ridge, or rather the gap in it, by which the two sides of the island communicate, had contented themselves with a Pisgah view, and had left the others to pursue their journey through the wood below.

They report that there is not more flat ground there than here, and that there is no perceptible difference in the vegetation. They are enraptured with the wild beauty of the scenery, and have brought me many splendid flowers and shrubs,—the giant fuscia, andromedas, and myrtles; but above all, a lovely monopetalous flowering shrub: the leaves are thick-set, shiny green; the flower and berry of the richest purple. I never saw any thing like it. While we were sorting these in our dining-room under the fig-trees, the rest of the party joined us, reporting traces of recent habitation, such as fresh embers, and a horse evidently used for the saddle; so that, though we had not seen them, we concluded that there were probably some of the cowherds here, who on government account make charqui and cure hides for Valdivia; and this we afterwards had confirmed.

After dinner we went to the western side of the town, and there we admired the extraordinary regularity of the structure of the rocks, 353 and some curious caverns like those of Monte Albano. In one of the largest of these we found an enormous goat dead, which of course reminded us of “Poor Robin Crusoe.” The island abounds in these animals; but though in my walk to-day I found the lairs of several, I saw nothing alive.

And now, just as we were going to re-embark, a man made his appearance, and told us that he and four others were stationed on the island, as we supposed, on account of the cattle, and that a cargo of charqui, tallow, &c., had recently sailed for Talcuhana: we imagine this visit was occasioned by the appearance of our party on the other side this morning. Some tallow and hides that the master of the vessel had taken on board, Lord Cochrane now paid for. After which I left Juan Fernandez, probably for ever.

27th.—The vessel was anchored so far off shore, that she dragged her anchor and chain-cable out to a considerable distance; the anchoring ground being almost as steep as at St. Helena. I remained on board, making sketches of the two bays; and the gentlemen went a‑fishing, and brought on board a boat-load of the finest fish imaginable, both of known and unknown kinds. Of the known kinds the principal were some fine rock-cod and crawfish, the latter nineteen inches long.

28th.—Having completed our water we sailed from Juan Fernandez, highly pleased with our visit. Cattle, and wine, and vegetables, might be produced here to a great extent; but any nation that takes possession of it as a harbour would have to import corn. The island might maintain easily 2000 persons, exchanging the surplus beef, wines, and brandy, for bread and clothing; and its wood and its water, besides its other conveniences, would render it valuable as a port in the Pacific: as it is, our whalers resort thither continually. The three bays called the East, the West, and the Middle Roads, are all under the lee of the island, so that the water is always smooth; they are all well watered, and very beautiful.

Monday, February 10th.—Since we left Juan Fernandez we have had a tolerable run. The thermometer has not been below 40°, 354 though we are now near Cape Horn. My poor invalid is very ill, and confined to his bed.

Tuesday, February 11th.—This day, we came early in sight of the land about Cape Horn, which we doubled about sunset. There were mists and clouds overhanging the land; now and then we had fine sunshine, but oftener cold misty breezes. The coast is high and remarkable, especially about False Cape Horn, where there are several large conical hills; but we were not near enough to distinguish them very clearly. Lord Cochrane had landed here on his passage to Chile; and tells me he walked some hours in a delightful valley, in the month of November, full of beautiful evergreens and flowers. Very high mountains come near the sea, and even now, in autumn, the highest are covered with snow. The near hills are bold and precipitous: the cliffs of Cape Horn itself are white as chalk, and rise in fantastic spiry points, like the ruins of some old castle; and as the sun went down through the hazy air, they took fine glowing tints of gold and purple. The light just served us to see the inhospitable naked peaks of Barneveldt’s Isles, or rather rocks: beyond which high mountain-tops peeped through heavy clouds. The names of Horne and Barneveldt preserve to the Dutch their seniority in the discovery of this easy passage into the Pacific. It was in 1616 that Le Maire, a native of Horne in Holland, first doubled this Cape, and by naming it after his birth-place, gave to that little town one of the most remarkable monuments in the known world. I am very well pleased to have seen the Cape; but I wished rather to have come through the Straights of Magellan, for the sake of the early navigators, Drake, 355 Cavendish, and others, whose adventures and sufferings give an interest to these savage scenes which their own desolateness, though grand in itself, could not inspire: for the same reasons, I regret not having seen Chiloe for Byron’s sake.

12th February.—To-day we ran through the straights of Le Maire. The land on the side of America about Cape Good Success seems good and pleasant, with many gentle hills covered with grass and trees: beyond, are high mountains; and on the coast some abrupt rocks, and frequent harbours and coves. Staten Land on the east side of the straights, is so bleak and barren-looking, that I suppose it will be one of the last spots on the globe that will be inhabited.

The weather is chilly and uncomfortable.

14th, off Falkland’s Islands.—This morning we found ourselves off the western Falkland Island. It is moderately high, and completely bare of trees, as far as we could see; but covered with short grass, and here and there patches of low green shrubs. The rocks appear to be all of sandstone in horizontal layers: where they dip at all, it is to the southward. The coast is surrounded by broken rocks, which stand up like the pinnacles of churches; and here and there natural gateways and windows, that put me in mind of the scenery of Holy Island on our own shores. There are many admirable bays, but all, are uninhabited. The Spaniards destroyed cruelly our settlement at Port Egmont; and they have been obliged to abandon their own, owing, it is said, to the severity of the climate, and barrenness of the land. But I imagine cultivation might cure both these evils; and nothing can be better situated than these islands for fitting ships destined for the Pacific. The thermometer has fluctuated to-day between 43° and 50°, and we have had snow and sleet; the barometer gives us from 29—15 to 29—20. The temperature of the sea-water 48°.

1st March.—We came in sight of the land about Cape Santa Marta. At night there was the most beautiful lightning possible; and while we were looking at it, we heard something fall into the sea like a heavy body from a height, at some distance from us; and 356 about half an hour afterwards Mr. J—— saw, and some of the others heard, a second body fall into the water. Could these be meteoric stones? The thermometer for some days not under 80°.

4th.—We are going slowly along the land, thermometer 82° morning and evening; 89° at noon.

9th.—Sailing along the land and among the islands of the bay of Santos, not one half of which appear in the charts. They are mostly high; many of them rocky, and many covered with palm trees. We have had the thermometer at 94°; but last night a thunder-storm and some heavy squalls of wind and rain have cooled the air.

13th.—We anchored in the harbour of Rio de Janeiro.

357

POSTSCRIPT.

The civil war that had broke out before I left Chile was not of long duration, and occasioned little bloodshed. It terminated in the election of Freire to the directorship, and the calling of a new convention; which it is devoutly to be hoped will profit by the errors of the last. The Director O’Higgins, a few days after his return to Santiago, having narrowly escaped with his life from the earthquake at Valparaiso, retired to rest and recruit his strength at the Conventilla, his country seat; and in order that public affairs might not suffer, perhaps also to give still more consequence to Rodriguez, who was San Martin’s creature, and whom he was resolved at that time to support, he delegated his authority to that minister and three others, who appear to have exercised it but a few days.—Affairs in the South were coming to a crisis: the soldiers and money expected from Coquimbo were turned against the government of Santiago. Aconcagua followed the example, and sent deputies to the convention of Coquimbo; and the attempt to recruit for the army of O’Higgins cost several lives in Quillota: as a last resource, Rodriguez was given up, on which Arcas fled. San Martin also hastily abandoned the man whom his evil counsels had in part ruined, and the only resource remaining to the Director was the attachment of the troops. He went to the barracks,—he called on them in the name of the country to stand by him; he spoke to them of the glory they had 358 won together, of his pride in their attachment. A very few, on this appeal, declared for the Director. Many said the cause of the country had been ruined by his measures; Freire was as well beloved as he, and had also been their companion and leader; and to crown all, the names of the Carreras were whispered in the ranks. He bared his breast, and told them since he had failed to satisfy his countrymen and fellow-soldiers, he offered them a life now little worth; and after one cry of “Long live the Director O’Higgins!” from his own guard only, he retired, charging them all to remain quiet, as he would not hazard the shedding the blood of his fellow-citizens; and this I believe was the last public act of that good though weak man.

He had been made the tool of a speculating trading company, through the influence of his mother and sister, and his fall was not surprising. He wished to retire to Ireland, the country of his fathers; but he has been detained under I know not what pretence of making him accountable for the treasury expenditures, and he was placed in the custody of Zenteno.

The army of Freire marched straight to Valparaiso, where it was joined by a small force by sea from Talcahuana. Hence it proceeded to the capital; not, however, so suddenly as to rouse whatever spirit of affection for the Director might have prompted resistance from the troops. Meantime the partizans of Freire and the enemies of O’Higgins made common cause: the old convention was dispersed, and the new one, consisting, however, of many of the old members, met, elected in a more popular manner. Freire long resisted the solicitations of all parties to assume the dictatorship, alleging his proclamations and avowed intentions only to remove bad ministers by his expedition from the South. But it was clear that O’Higgins would be no longer suffered. The country required some chief magistrate; and at length on the 31st of March, 1823, an official letter was presented to him, signed by the deputies plenipotentiary of Santiago, Conception, and Coquimbo, insisting on his accepting the office. Another was also written, appointing these three, i.e. Juan Egaña plenipotentiary for Santiago, Manoel Novoa for Conception, 359 and Manoel Antonio Gonzalez for Coquimbo, together with the new Director, and the secretary Alamos, as a senate, authorised to pass an act of union, and to bring together the conventions of the three divisions of the state. On the 1st of April, Freire accepted the office of Director, the Senate entered on its functions, and the Convention appears to have proceeded to business.

The revolution has been thus far conducted with unusual moderation and temper; a circumstance creditable to the leaders on both sides, and which will, it is to be hoped, continue to actuate the farther proceedings of the new government. I do not know better how to end this short notice of the changes that have happened since my departure from Chile, than by the following memorial, addressed to the new Convention, and signed by the members of the junta of government which had exercised the supreme authority from the time of the abdication of the Director-general O’Higgins, to the meeting of the Congress, or rather till the new Senate was chosen:—