276 A VISIT TO THE PROVINCES 



ment, for smelting copper from ores, on a scale even more extensive than either of those at the 

 port. The same proprietor has also erected rolling mills, and has already furnished quite an 

 amount of sheet copper to the Valparaiso market. Bad weather and want of time prevented a 

 visit to them. Between La Serena and the village the river is but a rivulet thirty or forty feet 

 wide, with an average depth of one foot, and a fall at this season of the year producing a 

 current not exceeding two miles per hour. During summer all the water is consumed in culti- 

 vation before it can reach the bay. As there is no other stream in this part of the province, and 

 never any rain between August and May following, the agricultural product to supply a large 

 mining population is very greatly less than the demand ; and, in consequence, their neighbors 

 are called on to make up deficiencies. Flour comes from the central and southern provinces, 

 through Valparaiso ; the Argentine republic supplies beef and beasts of burden ; and their own 

 land is thus left free for vegetables and fruits. 



A college for the education of young men has been founded under the auspices of government, 

 and is apparently quite nourishing. It has five or six professors, and, including day scholars, 

 nearly one hundred students. When under charge of Professor Domeyko, it contained a mi- 

 neralogical cabinet for instruction in organic chemistry superior to any other in the republic ; 

 but since his removal to the capital, there is less earnest' interest in the science, and the cabinet 

 already exhibits the want of his watchful care. An old convent, formerly occupied by Jesuits, is 

 used as the college building. There were six primary schools for boys, badly as well as irregu- 

 larly attended at that time, and a single private school for girls, at which there were nearly 

 seventy pupils under charge of one teacher ! As she instructs, or at least receives, so many 

 scholars, her reputation is proportionably great with the Coquimbanos her ability with them 

 being in direct ratio to the number of half ounces ($8.62) per month paid to her. That she 

 could receive more girls than it would be possible to give lessons to, seemed not to enter the 

 minds of those who talked with me. If the capital of the province has so little regard for edu- 

 cation, what must we expect from the different departments ? In all of them five in number 

 the Intendente officially informed the Minister of Public Instruction,. on the ITth March, 1851, 

 there were 33 schools of every class, 1,416 male and 357 female pupils. The published census 

 of these departments shows a population of 85,349 souls at the last enumeration ; but if the 

 increase in the others has been in proportion, according to the information which the Intendente 

 gives us,* there" should now be in the province of Coquimbo nearly 130,000 souls, or about one 

 in seventy of its population receiving the benefit of instruction. 



Unless a theatre, not open at that time, and a tolerably good hotel (for Chile), can be in- 

 cluded in the number, there are no other public buildings than those mentioned ; and if one 

 may judge from the concourse constantly assembled, the hotel possesses greater attractions than 

 any other single edifice in La Serena. If Santiago is silent and triste to a stranger, La Serena 

 is doubly so its 9,000 people seeming to have no occupation to call them out of doors; and the 

 city looks as if, after being nicely built and thoroughly whitewashed, its population had departed 

 with the brooms which had been used to sweep its streets so clean. There are a few tolerably 

 gay-looking shops on some of the streets, and in passing one may perhaps see a lounging customer 

 or two dawdling with the clerks or proprietors ; but there are no other evidences of business or 

 activity : indeed the only place where any collection of persons could be seen, was around the 

 billiard and domino tables at the fonda. There, from 10 o'clock in the morning until mid- 

 night of every day (Sundays not excepted), the tables were occupied by players, and the walls 

 lined with expectants, who puffed cigaritos whilst awaiting their turns. If one were to judge 

 from the richness of dress and the jaunty manner in which cloaks are worn over the shoulder, it 

 would be fair to estimate that at least nine tenths of the better class of men visited the fonda 

 during the day ; but dress is an especially fallacious standard it being a universal rule to make 

 the greatest possible display in public. Some purchase costly equipages, which they exhibit on 

 the Pampilla near Santiago only on one day of the national holidays ; others, whose purses are 



* Auales de la Univereidad, 1851. 



