FIRST EXPERIENCES IN CHILE. 467 



destinations with men-handi-'- from the port, and wood, charcoal,, or watermelons from 

 the country. Here y.u ene..unter a cavalcade of mules, carrying long pieces of scantling crossed 

 ahove their head-, and trailing the ground at several feet from their hinder legs on each side. 

 Probably they have heen thus dragged for three hundred miles! Woe to your shins if they 

 in contact with them. A liitle tart her on is another troop, loaded with wheat in sacks of 

 Yet a third conveys the heds..|'a family in similar coverings, and their apparel in trunks, 

 also protected by cases of the same material. In another place a train of long-eared donkeys 

 stagger under loads of sand or pebble-stones for paving. They nibble, AS they pass, at rinds of 

 melons cast aside by the chain-gangs at work on the streets under guards of soldiers. Here comes 

 the haker on an ambling mule, with two neatly finished and trunk-like panniers. He occupies 

 nearly one third the width of the street. He utters no cry, and looks moderately tidy. Silently, 

 also, the milk-woman comes next, with tin vessels similarly suspended; her costume too often 

 resembling the aguador's. There are countrymen on foot driving flocks of turkeys, or with 

 baskets piled up with grapes or figs ; and others riding between panniers packed high with 

 radishes larger than one's arm, onions, salads, all other vegetables not requiring a cart to 

 carry them, and every fruit in its season. Each has its recommendatory song, and the combi- 

 nation of sounds renders Santiago a perfect Bedlam. But hark ! there are short and rapid strokes 

 from one of the bells of the cathedral; and, with an instant's intermission, from the campanile 

 comes a single solemn vibration through the air. Behold! the life-current is apparently para- 

 lyzed. Eiders dismount; pedestrians fall to their knees; all bareheaded, bowed, and silent, are 

 motionless as the grave till the third stroke releases them from the act of humiliation, and 

 they rise, crossing themselves. Probably nothing makes greater impression on one arriving in 

 a Catholic country, who knows not the cause of an act apparently so solemn, nor has had 

 opportunity to ascertain the amount of religious intelligence possessed by the community sur- 

 rounding him. The unseen cause of this remarkable custom is the elevation of the Host in the 

 cathedral at that instant, a ceremony repeated with clock-like regularity each day. Mass over, 

 the friars seem to be let loose. One takes with him a puppet fantastically dressed, borne by a 

 lay brother; himself charged only with a plate on which to receive contributions from the pious, 

 who have the privilege of kissing the doll, or it may be a bit of the fustian of his own garment 

 offered for salutes. Another, and a more humble mendicant brother, presents with one hand a 

 box containing a small wax image amid tinsel ornaments, with the other a tin box in which to 

 receive your oblations. 



Soon the days became extremely warm, and at times oppressive before noon. Once in these 

 early weeks the clouds banked heavily over the Andes, and towards 4 P. M. we heard the first 

 thunder since leaving the region of the equator. There was evidently a violent thunder-storm 

 on the peaks thirty miles to the eastward ; and when the clouds rolled away, so that we could 

 perceive the mountains again, the snow-mantle had descended half way down their rugged 

 sides. Snow and thunder-storms ! But if we had no near displays of thunder and lightning, the 

 muttering precursors of earthquakes sufficiently resemble the rumbling of heaven's artillery to 

 keep up our recollection of the phenomenon ; and though we had not the warning of the sharp 

 and vivid flash in the cloud, there inevitably followed short, quick pulsations of the earth, more 

 startling because invisible and inevitable. Lightning is a monitor seen, and one is safe; the 

 murmur of the coming earth-storm may warn without preserving from annihilation. 

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