doubt that at present, in all the conditions of modern civilization, Chili leads the Southern Continent, and is the most powerful of all the republics in America except our own. Her statesmen are wise and able, her people are industrious and progressive, and have that strength of mind and muscle which is given only to the men of temperate zones. There is a strong similarity between the Chillanos and the Irish. Both have the same wit and reckless courage, the same love of country and patriotic pride; and wherever a Chillano goes he carries his opinion that there never was and never can be a better land than that in which he was born; and although he may be a refugee or an exile, he will fight in defence of Chili at the drop of the hat. There is something refreshing in his patriotism, even if it be the most arrogant vanity. Our people are becoming ashamed of their Fourth of July, and the Declaration of Independence is the butt of professional jokers. The Chillano will cut the throat of a man who will not celebrate with him the 18th of September, his Independence Day; and there is a law in the country requiring every house to have a flag-staff, and every flag-staff to bear the national colors—a banner by day and a lantern by night—on the anniversaries of the republic. All the schools must use text-books by native authors, all the bands play the compositions of native composers, and visiting opera and concert singers are compelled to vary their performances by introducing the songs of the country. It is said that a Frenchman can never be denationalized. The same is true of the Chillano. There has not been a successful revolution in Chili since 1839; and although there is nowhere a more unruly and discordant people, nowhere so much murder and other serious crimes, in their love of country the haughty don and the patient peon, the hunted bandit and the cruel soldier, are one.

Many of the leading men of Chili are and have been of Irish descent. Barney O’Higgins was the liberator, the George Washington of the republic, and Patrick Lynch was the foremost soldier of Chili in the late war. The O’Learys and McGarrys and other Chillano-Irish families are prominent in politics and war and trade. There is a sympathetic bond between the shamrock and the condor, and nowhere in South America does the Irish emigrant so prosperously thrive. Chillano wit is proverbial. The jolly, care-for-nothing peasant is the same there as upon the old sod, and the turgid, grandiloquent style of literature which prevails in other portions of Spanish-America in Chili finds a substitute in the soul-stirring, fervid oratory which is one of the gifts of the Irish race. A Chillano driver who was beating a mule was remonstrated with. The man looked up and remarked that it was the most obstinate animal he ever drove. “The beast thinks he ought to have been a bishop,” he said.

The vanity of the Chillano passes all comprehension. The officers of the army and navy actually offered their services, through the British minister, to England when there was a rumor of war with Russia; and with the slightest encouragement they would be willing to take the domestic as well as the international complications off the hands of the British cabinet. One day the English paper at Valparaiso published a satire, announcing that the Lords of the Admiralty had selected three leading Chillano naval officers to command the Bosporus, the Baltic, and the North Atlantic fleets. The officers as well as the people would not accept the bogus cablegram as a joke until the next issue of the paper, in which it was explained; and the former were actually polishing up their swords and uniforms to take their new commands.

The Chillano is not only vain but cruel—as cruel as death. He carries a long curved knife, called a curvo, as the Italian carries a stiletto and the negro a razor, and uses it to cut throats. He never fights with his fists, and knows not the use of the shillalah; he never carries a revolver, and is nothing of a thug; but as a robber or bandit, in a private quarrel or a public mob, he always uses this deadly knife, and springs at the throat of his enemy like a blood-hound. There is scarcely an issue of a daily paper without one or two throat-cutting incidents, and in the publications succeeding feast-days or carnivals their bloody annals fill columns.

As a soldier the Chillano is brave to recklessness, and a sense of fear is unknown to him. He will not endure a siege, nor can he be made to fight at long range; but as soon as he sees the enemy he fires one volley, drops his gun, and rushes in with his curvo. His endurance is as great as his courage, and no North American Indian can travel so far without rest or go so long without food and water as the Chillano peon, or roto, as the mixed race is called. As the cholo in Peru is the descendant of the Spaniards and the Incas, so is the roto in Chili the child of the Spaniards and the Araucanian Indians, the race of giants with which the early explorers reported that Patagonia was peopled—“Menne of that bigginess,” as Sir Francis Drake reported, “that it seemed the trees of the forests were uprooted and were moving away.” They have the Spanish tenacity of purpose, the Indian endurance, and the cruelty of both. Each soldier, in the mountains or the desert, carries on his breast two buckskin bags. In one are the leaves of the coca-plant, in the other powdered lime made of the ashes of potato-skins. The coca is the strongest sort of a tonic, and by chewing it the Chillano soldier can abstain from food or drink for a week or ten days at a stretch. He takes a bunch of leaves as big as a quid of tobacco in his mouth, and occasionally mixes the potato-ashes with the saliva to give the juice a relish. Canon Kingsley, in that remarkable novel, “Westward Ho!” describes two of the band of Amyas Leigh as deserting their companions at the sources of the Amazon, and takes them into a beautiful bower with two Dianas of the Indian type. There they chew coca-leaves with the girls, sink into a voluptuous stupor, and give themselves up to love, like the lotos-eaters, until Amyas comes to remonstrate. The men recommend him to follow their example with the Venus who has been found in an Indian queen and admires the young commander; and the Puritan is on the point of yielding to the fascination of the scene, when a reptile comes, strangles one of the girls, and revives the moral instincts of the men. The reverend word-painter was misinformed as to the peculiar influence of the drug, as it does not produce a stupor in those who use it. It is not a narcotic, but a stimulant.

The Chillano soldier is not easily subjected to discipline, and outvandals the Vandals in the destruction of property, as the present condition of Peru will prove. He burns and destroys everything within his reach that has sheltered an enemy. No authority can restrain his hand. The awful scenes of devastation that took place have nothing to parallel them in the annals of modern warfare. On the battle-fields nine-tenths of the dead were found with their throats cut, and the Chillanos took no prisoners except when a whole army capitulated. They ask no quarter and give none. The knowledge of this characteristic, and the fear of the Chillano knife, were powerful factors in the subjugation of the more humane Peruvians.

The Chillanos are cruel to beasts as well as to men. Horses are very cheap in Chili. A good native broncho can be purchased for five dollars, and his owner knows no mercy. The beasts are driven until they drop, and then new ones are sought and subjected to the same treatment. No care is taken to protect or make the animals comfortable. Although the weather is usually cold, stables for horses or cattle are almost unknown. When their labor is over they are turned into a corral, or a pasture, or the street, to seek their own food.

The Chillanos are also careless of machinery. While they are quick to learn, and have much native mechanical ingenuity, they cannot be trusted as machinists. The magnificent cruiser Esmeralda, one of the finest ships-of-war afloat, was built in England for the Chillian Government at a cost of one and a half million dollars, but she had not been in the hands of native engineers six weeks before her engines needed repairs and her boilers were ruined. In 1885, during the troubles between England and Russia, she was chartered by the British Government, but afterwards returned to Chili. The Chillanos have a line of steamers running from Valparaiso up and down the coast. They are the finest ships on the Pacific, built on the Clyde, with all modern improvements, but the engineers and captains are Englishmen or Scotchmen. The Government owns and manages the railroads in the republic, but the locomotive drivers are foreigners. Every three or four years—usually before a Presidential election—these men are discharged and natives employed in their stead; but until election is over, and the old engineers are restored to their places, there is a carnival of accidents, and passenger travel is practically suspended. On all railroads are heavy grades and dangerous curves, requiring the greatest care on the part of locomotive drivers. The reckless Chillano thinks it great fun to run a train down a grade at full speed, and a collision is his delight. He enjoys seeing things smashed up, and knows nothing of the necessity of operating trains on schedule time.

In trade the Chillano is a Yankee. At market or in the native shops the buyer is not expected to pay the price first asked. He is expected to enter into a negotio, and the seller is disappointed if he loses an opportunity to show his shrewdness in the barter. There is no regularly established price for any article. A market-woman will ask two dollars for a basket of fruit for which she expects to get fifty cents. She will haggle and chatter, plead and remonstrate, and if you start towards another stall, will abandon half a dozen other customers and follow you around, until she finally “splits the difference,” and goes away smiling at her success. The traveller meets with this experience everywhere, particularly at the posadas; and the only safe way to avoid being mercilessly swindled is to make a bargain in writing beforehand.

Most of the hotel-keepers are women, whose husbands are engaged in other occupations; but all the servants, including the cooks and chamber-“maids,” are men. There are better cooks and better classes of food than in other South American countries, and one seldom fails to find a good inn even in the country villages. The markets of Chili, too, are better. The beef, mutton, and other meats have the flavor that is found only in temperate climates; the fish are not so rank and coarse as those caught in tropical waters; and while vegetation is not so prolific, the fruits of the earth have a finer taste. There are oysters equal to those of New Orleans or Mobile, clams and lobsters, and plenty of shrimps, called camarons.

Another oddity is the milk stations. At distances of a few blocks on all but the principal business streets is a platform where a cow is tied, which is milked to order by a dairy-maid whenever a customer calls. On a table near by are found measures, cans, and glasses, and often a bottle of brandy, so that a thirsty man can mix a glass of punch if he chooses. In the morning these stands are surrounded by servants from the aristocratic houses, women and children, with cups and buckets, awaiting their turn; and as fast as one cow is exhausted another is driven upon the platform.

The scarcity of lumber has caused the poorer classes to use corrugated sheet-iron as a building material, while the rich use stone for exterior walls, and sun-dried brick or adobe for partitions. There are whole blocks in Valparaiso in which nothing but corrugated-iron houses can be seen, both roof and walls being of the same material. It is said to bear the effects of earthquakes well. People expect an earthquake about once in ten days the year round, and more frequently during the changes of season; but great damage is seldom done. There are two kinds of earthquake, the terremoto and the temblor. The latter is only a quivering or shaking of the ground, and is quite common; the other describes the convulsions of the earth when it cracks and rolls like the swell of the sea, overthrows cities, and buries towns in their own ruins. Valparaiso and Santiago have never known any of the latter sort, which are confined to the mountain districts and the neighborhood of volcanoes.

There are more comforts among the people than elsewhere upon the continent, and a higher degree of taste, as is shown by the articles offered for sale in the shops as well as in the houses of the residents, which is owing in a great degree to the example of the large foreign population. The Rev. Dr. Trumbull, who has been in Chili forty-five years, says that he has noticed a marked change in this respect within the last decade, and has seen a gradual and permanent growth in refinement and honesty.

In Chili, as in all the Spanish-American countries, every man and woman is named after the saint whose anniversary is nearest the day on which he or she was born, and that saint is expected to look after the welfare of those christened in his or her honor. These names sound well in Spanish, but when they come to be translated into unpoetic English there is an oddity, and often something comical, about them. For example, the name of the recent President of Chili is Domingo Santa Maria—which, being interpreted, means Sunday St. Mary. The name of the President of Ecuador is Jesus Mary Caamaño (apple), and that of the Governor of the Province of Valparaiso is Domingo Torres (Sunday Bull). A waiter at the hotel happened to be a Christmas gift to his parents, whose family name was Vaca (cow), and in honor of the day they called him Jesu Christo Vaca. Such blasphemy would not be tolerated in any other country; but the use of the Saviour’s name is very common, even upon the signs of stores and saloons in cities, and in the nomenclature of the streets. I met a girl once whose name was Dolores Digerier (sorrowful stomach).

In Chili women are employed not only as street-car conductors, but they do all the street-cleaning, and gangs of them with willow brooms sweeping the dirt into the ditches can be seen by any one who has curiosity enough to get up at daylight. They occupy the markets, too, selling meats as well as vegetables. On the streets they keep fruit-stands, and have canvas awnings under which, if you choose, you can sit and eat watermelons, a fruit much esteemed in Chili. Outside of the cities the women keep the shops and the drinking-places, and do all the garden work. The laundry work is done at public fountains, as in other of the Spanish-American countries; but the washer-women of Chili do not go almost naked, as some of their neighbors do.

The native Peruvian, the descendant of the ancient Incas, has learned nothing since the Conquest, and has forgotten most of the arts his fathers knew, among them being the process by which the ancient race rendered copper as hard as steel. Thousands of dollars have been offered for that secret by modern bidders, but it is lost forever, and the ingenuity and knowledge of modern chemists cannot discover the process. The modern Inca wears the same blanket, or poncho, made of vicuña hair, that his fathers did, and the same shoes made of raw hide. He has rougher roads to travel than has the native of Central America, hence his shoe is made to curl over on the sides and behind, so as to protect the toes and the heel from contact with the rocks. It is cut in a single piece from hide when green, and is made to curl by stretching it over a primitive sort of last and keeping it in position until dry. The shoe is attached to the foot by a thong, which passes along the entire top of the shoe, laced through holes cut in the hide, and ending at the heel in two strips, which are secured around the ankle. The evolution of the native shoe is found in Chili; and although it lacks the maturity and sanctity of age, which the Peruvian article enjoys, is a rather more nobby

affair. The sole is made of wood, rudely cut by hand with a knife, and over the instep passes a piece of patent leather reaching from the toes to the ankle, which is nailed to the sole by rows of brass-headed tacks. The toes and heel are entirely without protection, and it requires a great deal of experience to keep the shoe on. It is worn in the coldest weather, over a very heavy and thick stocking knit of llama wool, and an uglier pair of feet and legs than are shown by the short-skirted peasant women of Chili were never seen. The men wear the same sort of shoe—not quite so fancy in design nor of such fine materials, however; but as they spend most of their time in the saddle it is not so bad.

The Crœsus of South America is a woman, Donna Isadora Cousino, of Santiago, Chili, and there are few men or women in the world richer than she. There is no end to her money and no limit to her extravagance, and the people call her the Countess of Monte Cristo. She traces her ancestry back to the days of the Conquest, and has the record of the first of her fathers who landed early on the shores of the New World. His family was already famous, for his sire fought under the ensign of the Arragons before the alliance with Castile. But the branch of the family that remained in Spain was lost in the world’s great shuffle two or three centuries ago, and none of them distinguished themselves sufficiently to get their portraits into the collection which Señora Cousino has made of the lineage she claims.

Like her own, the ancestors of her late husband came over in the early days, and in the partition of the lands and spoils of the Conquest both got a large share, which they kept and increased by adding the portions given to their less thrifty and less enterprising associates, until the two estates became the largest, most productive, and most valuable of all the haciendas of Chili, and were finally united into one by the marriage, twenty-four years ago, of the late Don and his surviving widow. While he lived he was considered the richest man in Chili, and she the richest woman, for their property was kept separate, the husband managing his estate and the wife her own, and the people say that she was altogether the better “administrator” of the two. This fact he acknowledged in his will when he bequeathed all of his possessions to her, and piled his Pelion upon her Ossa; so that she has millions of acres of land, millions of money; flocks and herds that are numbered by the hundreds of thousands; coal, copper, and silver mines; acres of real estate in the cities of Santiago and Valparaiso; a fleet of iron steamships, smelting-works, a railroad, and various other trifles in the way of productive property, which yield her an income of several millions a year that she tries very hard to spend, and under the circumstances succeeds as well as could be expected. From her coal-mines alone Señora Cousino has an income of eighty thousand dollars a month; and there is no reason why this should not be perpetual, as they are the only source in all South America from which fuel can be obtained, and those who do not buy of her have to import their coal from Great Britain. She has a fleet of eight iron steamships, of capacities varying from two thousand to three thousand six hundred tons, which were built in England, and are used to carry the coal up the coast as far as Panama, and around the Strait of Magellan to Buenos Ayres and Montevideo. At Lota she has copper and silver smelting-works, besides coal-mines, and her coaling ships bring ore down the coast as a return cargo from upper Chili, Peru, and Ecuador; while those that go to Buenos Ayres bring back beef and flour and merchandise for the consumption of her people.

Although Lota is only a mining town, as dirty and smoky as any of its counterparts in Pennsylvania, it is the widow’s favorite place of residence, and she is now building a mansion that will cost at least a million dollars. The architect and the chief builder are Frenchmen, whom she imported from Paris, and much of the material is also imported. Not long ago she shipped a cargo of hides and wool in one of her own steamers to Bordeaux, and it is to return laden with building supplies for this mansion. She herself has no time to go across the sea, but the captain of her ship will bring with him decorators and designers and upholstery men, who will finish the interior of her mansion regardless of expense.

The structure stands in the centre of what is undoubtedly the finest private park in the world—an area of two hundred and fifty acres of land laid out in the most elaborate manner, containing statuary, fountains, caves, cascades, and no end of beautiful trees and plants. The improvement of the natural beauty of the place is said to have cost Señora Cousino nearly a million dollars, and she has a force of thirty gardeners constantly at work. The superintendent is a Scotchman, and he informed me that his orders were to make the place a paradise, without regard to cost. In this park there are many wild animals and domesticated pets, some of which are natives of the country, others imported; and the flowers are something wonderful.

Señora Cousino has another park and palace an hour’s drive from Santiago, the finest estancia in Chili, perhaps in all South America; nor do I know of one in North America or Europe that will equal it. This is “Macul,” and the estate stretches from the boundaries of the city of Santiago far into the Cordilleras, whose glittering caps of everlasting snow mark the limit of her lands. In the valleys are her fields of grain, her orchards, and her vineyards, while in the foot-hills of the mountains her flocks of sheep and herds of cattle feed. Here she gives employment to three or four hundred men, all organized under the direction of superintendents, most of whom are Scotchmen. She has in her employ at “Macul” one American, whose business is that of a general farmer; but his time is mostly occupied in teaching the natives how to operate labor-saving agricultural machinery.

Farming in Chili is conducted very much as it was in Europe in old feudal times, each estate having its retainers, who are given houses or tenements, and are paid for the amount of labor they perform. It is said that Señora Cousino can marshal a thousand men from her two farms if she needs them. The vineyard of “Macul” supplies nearly all the markets of Chili with claret and sherry wines, and the cellar of the place, an enormous building five hundred feet long by one hundred wide, is kept constantly full. Señora Cousino makes her own bottles, but imports her labels from France. On this farm she has some very valuable imported stock, both cattle and horses, and her racing stable is the most extensive and successful in South America. She takes great interest in the turf, attends every racing meeting in Chili, and always bets very heavily on her own horses. At the last meeting her winnings are reported to have been over one hundred thousand dollars outside of the purses won by her horses, which are always divided among the employés of the stables.

In addition to “Macul” Señora Cousino has another large estate about thirty miles from Santiago; but she gives it very little attention, and has not been there for a number of years. In the city she has two large and fine houses, one of them being the former residence of Henry Meiggs—the finest in Santiago at the time it was built. All the timber and other materials used in its erection was brought from California. It is built mostly of red cedar. The construction and architecture are after the American plan, and in appearance and arrangement it resembles the villas of Newport.

The other city residence of Señora Cousino is a stone mansion erected on the Spanish plan, with a court in the centre, and is ornamented with some very elaborate carving. The interior was decorated and furnished many years ago by Parisian artists at an enormous cost, and the house is fitting for a king. There is no more elaborate or extensive residence in America, and the money expended upon it would build as fine a house as that of W. H. Vanderbilt in New York. The widow, however, spends but very little time within its walls, as she prefers her home at Lota, where most of her business is.

Her ability as a manager is remarkable, and she directs every detail, receiving weekly reports from ten or twelve superintendents who have immediate charge of affairs. While she is generous to profligacy, she requires a strict account of every dollar earned or spent upon her vast estates, and is very sharp at driving a bargain. One of her Scotch superintendents told me that there was no use in trying to get ahead of the señora. “You cannot move a stone or a stick but she knows it,” he said. In addition to her landed property and her mines she owns much city real estate, from which her rentals amount to several hundred thousand dollars a year. She is also the principal stockholder in the largest bank in Santiago. Not long ago she presented the people of that city with a park of one hundred acres, and a race-course adjoining it.

Fabulous stories of the señora’s extravagance are told. A million of dollars is a trifle to a woman whose income is so enormous, and there is nothing in the world that she will not buy if she happens to want it. She does not care much for art, but has a collection of diamonds that is very large and valuable, and she sometimes appears loaded down with them. Usually she looks quite shabby, as she has no taste or ambition for dress, and her party toilets, which are ordered from Paris, are seldom worn. Of late she has been a sufferer from sciatica, which has not only destroyed the señora’s own pleasure, but has seriously impaired the comfort of those who have relations with her. Although a comparatively young woman, being somewhere between forty-five and fifty years of age, she declares that she will never marry again; and there is not a man in Chili who has the courage to ask her. Not long since she took a fancy to a young German with a very blond beard and hair, and insisted that he should give up his business and make his home with her. The inducements she offered were sufficient, and for several months the young man has been tied to her apron-strings, having the ostensible employment of a private secretary. But the señora is very fickle, and will probably throw him overboard, as she has many others, when the whim seizes her.

Señora Cousino has two daughters and one son. Neither of the girls inherits her mother’s business ability, or at least has not developed it; but they are very popular in society. Señorita Isadora, the elder, has a great deal of musical talent, and performs on the violin and piano. Both are bright and pretty. One is about seventeen, and the other nineteen years of age. Their brother, a young man of twenty-three or twenty-four, will share the property with them. It is quite an unusual thing for a youth with so much money to develop the business capacity and industry which he shows. He looks after the estancia at “Macul,” and spends from six to eight hours a day in the saddle, riding about the place. He seldom joins in the festivities that his mother enjoys so much, and is quite pronounced in his disapproval of her extravagance. He is to marry a young lady of rather humble station, and it is expected that the Meiggs mansion, which has been previously described, will be presented to the bride by his mother as a wedding-gift.

The struggle between the Catholic Church and the liberal progressive element in Chili, which has been going on for a number of years, is now at its height. In all of the nations of Central and South America a similar struggle has occurred. In Mexico and all Central America, in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Chili, the Argentine Republic, and Uruguay the Liberals are uppermost, and have control of the State. Ecuador and Bolivia are still in the hands of the priests, and are ruled at Rome. But even in these republics there is a growing tendency towards liberalism, and the day will soon arrive when the power of the Church in politics will be overcome, and its authority over temporal affairs denied. The Clerical party is growing in Peru. It has revived during the prostration of that republic, and although the liberal element is still in power, the Government is so weak that it cannot defy the Church as it once could. Therefore, the priests and monks and Jesuits, who were driven out years ago, are returning in large numbers to resume their authority over the common people and intrigue for an administration favorable to them.

In Chili there has been no confiscation of church property, as in some of the other States, and at the capital there are still over two thousand monks and as many nuns. The Jesuits have been expelled for engaging in conspiracy against the Government, but the outer orders of friars are permitted to remain. A dispute between the archbishop and the President some years ago caused the former to retire from Chili, and the Pope sent over a nuncio to try and arrange matters; but this legate criticised the Government so severely from the pulpit that he was given a passport and an escort of military, and now there are no relations whatever between the Pope and Chili, although the Catholic faith is still recognized by the Constitution as the established religion of the republic. The radical element of the Liberal party favors extreme measures, but the Conservative faction, of which Ex-President Santa Maria is the leader, wisely prefers to take steps slowly, and avoid revolution.

The Liberal party has a majority in Congress, and has passed several laws by which the authority and influence of the Church has been greatly crippled. The Liberal majority in Congress has placed the appointment of bishops in the hands of the President of the republic instead of the Pope; it has declared civil marriage to be the only legal one; it has opened the cemeteries to Jew and Gentile; taken the registers of births, marriages, and deaths out of the hands of the Church, and given them to civil magistrates; established non-sectarian schools, and passed a compulsory education law, under which all citizens who send their children to the priests and nuns to be taught have to pay a tax or fine to the State. These measures have all been bitterly fought by the clergy, but they have been compelled to yield in every instance. Just now the last act of Congress in this direction, establishing civil marriage, and recognizing the legitimacy of only those children born of parents wedded in this way, is the bone of contention, and has caused the bitterest struggle which the State has seen.

It formerly cost twenty-five dollars to be married by the Church, and a large part of its revenues came from that source. The peons, who scarcely ever are able to accumulate so much money, therefore lived in a state of concubinage, and more than half the children born in Chili were illegitimate. Now a marriage certificate can be secured from a civil magistrate for twenty-five cents, and persons cohabiting without it are subject to fine and imprisonment. The archbishop has issued a decree excommunicating from the Church all persons who are married by the civil right, and the Catholics of the country, comprising ninety-nine per cent. of the population, are in a serious dilemma. They are compelled to choose between excommunication and imprisonment, and therefore in the upper classes weddings are no longer fashionable. Some people go first to the church and then to the magistrate, and run the risk of excommunication; but the more conscientious prefer to remain single.

Just now in Santiago there is a young man of brilliant attainments, a member of Congress and a leader of the Liberal party, who wants to marry the daughter of a prominent merchant. The engagement has been existing for several years, and both parties are willing to fulfil it according to a civil law; but the girl’s mother is a devout Catholic, and will not consent to a wedding without the blessing of a priest. The young man is willing to go to the church as well as to the magistrate, but the archbishop has forbidden any priest to marry him without a full retraction by him of his political record. This he refuses to make, and the couple are preparing to go to the United States or some European country to have the ceremony performed.

Not long ago there was a marriage in high life in one of the southern provinces of Chili, which attracted wide attention from the fact that it was the first defiance of the Church in that part of the country. On the Sunday following the wedding the couple were denounced by the bishop from the pulpit of the cathedral, and the Catholic newspaper published some brutal comments to the effect that the young couple had placed themselves on the level of beasts by cohabiting without the blessing of the Church. The bride’s brother belabored the editor so that he will be a cripple for life, and would have given the bishop a similar chastisement had not the latter kept out of the way.

At the last Presidential election, which occurred in June, 1886, Señor Balmaceda, the Liberal candidate, was elected to succeed President Santa Maria, who had served his full term of four years. He was bitterly opposed by the priests, who realized that his success would be their permanent discomfiture, and there were several serious riots, in which many were killed and wounded. But Balmaceda was peacefully inaugurated in September, and the Congress which assembled at the same time has an overwhelming majority in sympathy with the Administration. The issue at the election was the enforcement of the civil marriage statute, and some measures will be taken to reduce the Church to subjection. A law to expel from the country priests who intimidate citizens from obeying the civil marriage act has already been proposed. This will be open war; but priests who threaten to excommunicate will be sent into exile, where they will shortly be followed by the monks and nuns, and a general confiscation of church property will be the next step. It is estimated that one-third of the entire property in Chili is owned by the Church. Much of this property is held in trust for certain saints, to whom it has been bequeathed by devout persons, or purchased by the gifts of the people. Saint Dominic, for example, is one of the largest property-holders in South America, and has an income of more than a million dollars a year from his estates, which are ably managed by the Dominican friars. It is proposed to assess a tax upon these estates, which now pay nothing towards the support of the Government; and if the monks refuse to pay, the property will be confiscated.

Protestantism is making rapid progress in Chili. There are several missions under the care of the Presbyterian Board of the United States, and a number of self-supporting churches and schools. There is also a Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary, and a Young Ladies’ Seminary with about one hundred and fifty boarding scholars; but the common people still cling to the superstitions and practices of the past. Crucifixes upon which the bodies of bleeding Christs are displayed, with all the symbols of the Crucifixion—the sponge, hammer, nails, spear, and other implements—are erected in the public streets. They are accompanied by an announcement from the archbishop that whoever says a certain number of prayers at these places will receive total absolution for all past sins.

A beautiful marble monument has been erected on the site of the church which was burned about twenty years ago on the Feast of the Virgins. As usual on that day, high mass was celebrated by the bishop, and at this particular church, which was that of the patron saint of maidens, there was a

very large attendance of girls from all classes of society. The church was handsomely draped, and cords to which candles were hung were stretched between the pillars. Being insecurely placed, these burning candles fell into the crowd below and set the clothing of the girls on fire. There was a panic, and the entire crowd became jammed against the doors, which, folding inward, could not be opened. The roof caught fire and, burning, fell with crushing destruction upon the heads of those below. The priests took no means to rescue the worshippers, but managed to get out unharmed themselves, carrying with them all the plate and other valuable contents of the altar. Their cowardice and neglect were universally condemned, and they were compelled to leave the country.

It is not known how many lives were lost, and the inscription upon the monument—which stands in the centre of a plaza occupying the site of the church—gives no clew; but it is estimated that at least three thousand young ladies perished, and there was mourning in almost every house in Santiago. After the fire the bodies were found packed in a solid mass of flesh, the heads and upper portions of the forms being destroyed, while the limbs and lower portions of the bodies were uninjured. Since that calamity the Feast of the Virgins has been celebrated with mourning in Chili.

It is one of the rules of the Church that no women shall participate in the services except as silent worshippers. All the music and singing is given by men, usually monks, who are well trained. Sometimes, as on Easter or Christmas, when mass is celebrated with more than usual magnificence, opera-singers of both sexes are introduced into the choir to assist in the performance; but the women are compelled to dress in the clothes of men, for fear of offending St. Paul or some other anti-woman’s rights potentate by wearing petticoats.

At the beginning of the fishing season at Valparaiso it is customary to take the image of St. Peter, the patron of fishermen, in a boat and row it over the bay, in order to bless the fish; and those who expect to reap the reward of this patronage are highly taxed to pay for this performance. Every method by which money may be extorted from the people, every pretence which their ingenuity can invent, is practised by the priests to enrich the Church, and the funds are wasted by them in riotous living. Their looks are sufficient to convict them of the gluttony and libertinism of which they are accused, and it is a common thing to see them reeling through the streets in a state of intoxication.

In the wall of one of the handsomest residences, by the side of the main entrance, is a niche in which a statue of the Mother of Christ has been placed—a gaudy, tinsel-covered figure, with a halo of gas-jets and a mantle of gilt-embroidered satin. An iron grating protects the image from the street, but through the bars have been thrust garlands of flowers and gifts of various sorts—votive offerings from people in bodily distress or mental disorder. The lady who lives in this house, the wife of a wealthy native merchant, some years ago became very ill, and made a vow to the Virgin that if her health was restored she would show her gratitude in this manner; and there the statue stands to illustrate the woman’s piety. Almost daily people who are ill, as its owner was, and others in distress of mind from some cause or another, come to it with such offerings as their condition permits them to make, and trustfully appeal to the Holy Mother for relief. It is said that many miraculous cures have resulted from faith in the power of this image, and people always lift their hats and reverently cross themselves as they pass it by.

The 13th of May is the anniversary of the most destructive earthquake Santiago has ever seen, which occurred about forty years ago. The responsibility for the calamity lay with a woman who had a private saint, a household idol, to whom she offered prayers. This image deemed fit to withhold from her some favor she had asked, and she, angry, cast it violently into the street. This caused the earthquake! and it did not cease until the fear-stricken people took the image to the Church of St. Augustine, near by, where it was placed in a niche of honor, and has since been devoutly worshipped by them as the patron or preventer of earthquakes. For the lack of a better name, and because the image bears no resemblance to any saint that was ever known or told of, the people call him “Señor May.” Originally he was “Señor Thirteenth of May,” but now plain “Señor May,” for short. Each year, as the 13th of May comes round—the anniversary of his “martyrdom,” as the people call it—the entire population assemble to pay honor to the saint, and appeal for his intercession in preventing a recurrence of the earthquake, and, as everybody knows, these appeals have never been denied. “Señor May” protects the city at least one day in the year. As the church is not large enough to accommodate the multitude, the saint is taken out into the street and carried at the head of a procession, in which the bishop, the municipal authorities, companies of military, religious orders, and others march. The occasion is recognized by the Government and the municipality, and by commercial circles. Business houses are closed, and factories dismiss their workmen to take part in the ceremonies. The day is celebrated as universally as Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and the saint receives rich gifts from people who are grateful that their houses have not been shaken to pieces.

I was present at the celebration in 1885. First in the procession came a squad of policemen to clear the way, for the entire population was jammed into the streets; and in the windows and upon the roofs of houses the nobility and gentry of the city stood, watching the performance as eagerly as the gamins of the streets, and throwing garlands and bunches of flowers into the path over which “Señor May” was to pass. Men fought and cursed, struck and stabbed each other in the struggle to do homage to the image, and all the police in the city were present to preserve order and arrest disturbers of the solemn scene. The Government offices were closed, and the President himself, the leader of the anti-Church party, did not go to the palace.

Following the policemen came a line of monks in cowls and frocks of all colors. There were monks in white, monks in black, monks in gray, and monks in brown—Carmelites, Capuchins, Franciscans, and every order being represented. Then came a procession of priests in their vestments, with novitiates, each bearing a lighted candle and chanting some monotonous service. Behind them were a dozen altar-boys, some with incense-lamps which perfumed the air, and others with trays of flowers, which were scattered in the street for the bishop, who came next, to tread upon. He walked under a crimson canopy, wearing his most resplendent vestments, and bearing in his hands the Host—the Holy Sacrament—the body and blood of the Redeemer. Behind him were other incense-burners, and more boys with flowers. Then came, borne upon the shoulders of twenty men, the image of “Señor May”—an ugly and repulsive-looking effigy, draped with the most fantastic garments, rich embroideries, and much gold lace. Upon the pedestal were packages and caskets containing the offerings received that day; and as he passed along one and another would be added, handed from the houses or the crowd to the priests of St. Augustine’s Church, who surrounded the image to collect them.

The crowd fell upon their knees as this ghastly feature of fanaticism passed by. Every head was uncovered, and every reverent tongue murmured a prayer. Men pushed and struggled, women screamed, and the policemen struck forward and backward with their swords to prevent the people from surging into the streets. Then came more chanting priests, and another battalion of monks, then more incense-bearers, and a spectacle of even greater repulsiveness—an image of a bleeding Christ upon a crucifix, naked, with the drapery of a ballet-dancer about his loins! More priests and more monks, and then a band of music and a regiment of infantry in parade uniforms, followed by a long line of bareheaded men, each with a lighted candle in his hand. This part of the procession received large and continual additions. People from the crowd fell into line at the rear, and were furnished with candles by attendants, who carried boxes of them in a cart, until the line reached out for a mile or more. After the parade the images were returned to the Church of St. Augustine, where high mass was celebrated by the bishop, to which admission was secured only by ticket.

The next morning the newspapers contained long descriptions of the procession. The contest then, as now, going on between the Liberal party and the clerical element for political control gives the utterances of the official organ of the Government (Liberal) peculiar significance. I quote the brief paragraphs in which reference was made to the event of the month:

“The procession of ‘Señor May’ took place yesterday, accompanied by many religious festivities in the temple of St. Augustine. The people and the municipality joined with the church to give a transcendent recognition in a most solemn and impressive manner of the historic ‘Señor May.’ From the early hours of the day the surroundings of the temple of St. Augustine were occupied by great throngs of the faithful, who awaited the inauguration of the parade. A little before four o’clock there arrived the forces of the army, with the national band at their head, and took position in front of the church in accordance with the orders from the commander-in-chief of the army.

“Having been put in motion, the procession filed with difficulty through the great number of people who crowded the streets and followed with many prayers and significant rejoicing. The pedestals of the saints were beautifully adorned and covered with many valuable and votive offerings, the tender gifts of piety from the faithful. A committee from the municipal authorities, appointed to contribute to the solemnity of the occasion, participated in the ceremonies. The bands of music played various sentimental airs during the march.

“To resume, the acts of recognition to the most potent ‘Señor May,’ made in compliance with the vows of the year 1847, after the terrible catastrophe of the 13th of the present month, have been perfectly carried out by the Catholic capital of Chili.”

Farming in Chili is conducted on the old feudal system, very much as it is in Ireland. The country is divided into great estates owned by people who live in the cities, and seldom visit the haciendas. There are only two classes of people, the very rich and the very poor, the landlords and the tenants. On each estate are a number of cottages with garden patches around them, which are occupied by the tenants, and in payment for which the landlord is entitled to so many days’ labor each year at his option. Should more labor than is due be required of the tenant, he is paid for it, not in money, but in orders upon the supply store or commissary of the estate, where he can get clothing or food or rum—especially rum. Tenants are usually given small credits at these stores, and are kept in debt to the landlords. As the law prohibits them from leaving a landlord to whom they owe money, the poor are kept in perpetual slavery, like the party in mythology who was always rolling a stone uphill. Even under this cruel system of peonage master and slave usually get along pretty well together, but old-fashioned feudal wars are kept up between estates, as was the case in England centuries ago. The peon will always fight for his landlord, and bloody encounters are constantly occurring. There are in Chili to-day the same old family feuds that existed in the Middle Ages of Europe between the Montagues and the Capulets. Somebody stepped upon the coat-tails of somebody else, or kicked his poodle dog, away back in the early history of the country, and the two families have been slashing and hacking at each other ever since, while nobody can explain what it is all about. The tenant will always cut a throat in his master’s honor, but he can never get any richer in Chili than he is to-day.

Everybody goes on horseback; even the beggars ride. The gear of the Chili saddle-horse—and horses are seldom broken to harness, all the teaming being done with oxen—is a most curious and complicated affair. The bit is a long, heavy, flat piece of iron, which rests on the horse’s tongue, and presses against the roof of his mouth. At each end is a hole, through which is passed a large iron ring about four inches in diameter, which encircles the lower jaw. At each side of the mouth is placed another iron ring to which the reins are fastened. The whole affair weighs about five pounds, and is sufficiently powerful to break a horse’s jaw if suddenly jerked. The reins are made of fine-plaited hide or horse-hair, about the thickness of the forefinger, and are joined together when they reach the pommel of the saddle, terminating in a long lash called a chicote, at the end of which is either a handsome tassel or a small piece of lead. When not in use the chicote hangs down the flank of the horse, often dragging on the ground. Sometimes the load of lead is heavy, and furnishes a weapon of offence and defence as formidable as a slung-shot, and the poor horse is often beaten with it without mercy. Fancy bits are made of plated or solid silver, and bridles plated with gold, with reins made of golden wire, can be found in the larger cities. I saw a bridle in Chili, belonging to Señora Cousino, that is said to have cost two thousand five hundred dollars; and one often hears of gifts of this sort that are worth one thousand dollars or more.

The Chili saddle is even more queer and complicated than the bridle. First, six or seven sheepskins are placed upon the horse’s back, one on top of the other; a leather strap is passed around them and firmly secured; a skeleton saddle, or rather a piece of wood cut in the shape of a saddle-tree, with a cantle at each end, comes next, and on top of this any number of sheepskins; or, if the owner is rich, rare furs furnish a seat, which is called the montura. The four corners are fastened down by broad leather straps, ornamented with silver or brass buckles, to enable the rider to wedge himself in, and the whole is bound around the horse’s belly with a broad band of leather or canvas. Sometimes aristocratic and wealthy riders have a high pommel like that of the Mexican saddle, which is covered with silver, and stamped on the top with his family coat of arms. The amount of silver on a man’s riding equipment is understood to indicate his wealth and station in life, and there is a great deal of competition in this direction among the swell caballeros. The stirrups of the ordinary citizen are made of two huge pieces of wood, with a hole cut through for the foot, while those of the aristocrat are brass or silver slippers. The wooden affair, the poor man’s stirrup, is rudely cut out of oak, or other hard wood, by hand, and usually weighs as much as four or five pounds. The brass one is quite as heavy, but much more ornamental.