160 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



summer with a cloudless sky and the mountains so 

 beautiful on the horizon. 



We got into Talca, our next stopping place, early, 

 and I had my usual prowl with Steindachner. We 

 met such a pretty dark-eyed boy like an Italian with 

 a basket of the finest grapes on his head I ever saw, — 

 a transparent amber in color, enormous bunches and 

 very large berries, of the richest Frontenac flavor. I 

 have never seen such grapes, and Agassiz who knows 

 the European grapes so well said he had never seen 

 finer. They are peculiar to Talca and do not bear 

 transplanting even to a neighboring soil. There is one 

 very pretty feature of these old Spanish towns, which 

 I am told is a direct inheritance from Spain, — the 

 Alameida, that is long alleys of poplars planted close 

 together so as to form thick walls, very straight and 

 erect; as they grow to a great height here, the vista 

 they form is often very fine. In the evening Stein- 

 dachner and I went out into the public square to 

 hear the music; there was to our surprise a very 

 good military band playing w^ith taste and in excel- 

 lent time and tune. 



The last few days we had begun for the first time to 

 see more real poverty than before. Dreadful beggars 

 deformed with dirt and disease, such as are described 

 in Italy, hung around the inn doors and implored alms. 

 Till then I had never seen any begging in ChiU, at 

 least only the Indian children in Talcahuana, who 

 after I had given some beads to a few of them whose 

 photographs Agassiz wanted, would come outside the 

 windows half a dozen at a time, "Senhorita, pretty, 



