344 A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY. 



require or distance will permit. Had not the law of entail, so favorable to the aggregation of 

 property, been recently abolished, within a few years the Mayorazgos would have possessed the 

 whole of central Chile, and thus one of the most effectual modes of ameliorating the condi- 

 tion of those emphatically tillers of the soil have been absolutely cut off. Living away from 

 his property during the larger part of the year, holding intercourse with the hired peons or 

 their families only through his mayordomo, essentially if not necessarily influenced by self- 

 interest, there are few proprietors who look forward to elevating the character and condition 

 of their humbler countrymen ; and the majority, year after year, regard with careless indiffer- 

 ence a class of his fellow-men scarcely more cared for than the beasts in his fields. The 

 unfortunate poor ! Most of them literally fulfil the command of scripture, "take no thought 

 for the morrow ;" nor would they think of hereafter either, but for the annual visit of some 

 ghostly father in search of the few reals saved from their weekly earnings. 



It is difficult for one accustomed to the cleanly and comfortable dwellings, tidy-looking chil- 

 dren, and other evidences of prosperity surrounding the homes of our small farmers, or even 

 the neat quarters and healthy, well-clad offspring of the negroes in our Southern States, to 

 realize how his kind can descend so nearly to the level of brutes as they have done in Chile. 

 All the shelter the peon possesses is formed with a few stakes driven in the ground, and wattled 

 with reeds or brush, and thatched with flags or rushes. Even this is often in a most dilapidated 

 condition. A rude doorway, closed with rough boards, the cast-aside door of some house in 

 process of renovation, or perhaps a bit of raw hide, permits ingress to the bipeds and quadru- 

 peds who equally occupy its earthen floor. In one corner stands the rough bedstead of the 

 parents, and near it, perhaps, the infant's cradle an oblong board suspended from the roof by 

 a single cord secured to each of its four corners. All the other members of the family grown 

 brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts occupy skins and straw on the floor indiscriminately ; 

 and although this constantly results in crime the most shocking to humanity, its publicity 

 scarcely creates comment. Where girls commence at thirteen, and bear annually until fifty, 

 children are almost as numerous as the leaves about them ; and were it not for excessive mor- 

 tality, the population of the country would soon be driven into industrious habits, to migration, 

 or starvation. As it is, marriages are not frequent. Men and women live together during conve- 

 nience, then take up with other partners, sometimes after the birth of three or four children. 

 In such case, if not dead, the offspring remains with the mother. One whom I asked whether 

 she had ever been married by the priest, was fully persuaded that, in case of offence, a legal 

 husband had a right over her life : and as fidelity (from principle) is not very general among 

 them, she told me frankly that she greatly preferred living as she was; for if " Pepe does not 

 treat me well, I will quit him and go to Pancho, who will." She was very pretty, and evidently 

 well aware of the powers of her bright black eyes and elastic figure. Belief that the husband 

 has the power of life and death is probably inherited from the Araucanians, who exercise it 

 unscrupulously to the present day, and whose blood flows in the veins of many of them. Should 

 the family of the murdered (Araucanian) woman be disposed to resent the outrage, they are 

 recompensed by presents of horses, cattle, or clothing, nearly equivalent to the original chattels 

 paid them for her purchase. 



Should the priest arrive, on his annual visit, just subsequent to a new domestic arrangement, 

 and the present partners either possess or are able to obtain the necessary fees, excommunica- 

 tion and the pains of purgatory are preached at the pair until, in payment of the marriage and 

 baptismal fees of the children, the whole earnings are swept into the capacious pocket of the 

 church. From one or the other of them the confessional extorts information on both points, 

 though it is seldom anything can be laid by from their small earnings ; and the couples continue 

 to live on without the benediction of the priest over their couch or his holy invocation over their 

 child. Therefore there is no question that the greater number of children born in the country 

 are illegitimate, and some of them incestuous. Under such circumstances parental affection 

 can scarcely exist ; and the death of a child, if not actually desired, is regarded with little more 



