THE CHILENO. 129 



CHILE. 



have shown such feeling politeness to a poor and miserable 

 object of a degraded race ? 



My geological examination of the country generally 

 caused a good deal of surprise among the Chilenos: it was 

 long before they could be convinced that I was not hunting 

 for mines. This was sometimes troublesome. I found the 

 readiest way of explaining rny employment was to ask them 

 how it was that they themselves were not curious concerning 

 earthquakes and volcanoes? why some springs were hot 

 and others cold? why there were mountains in Chile and 

 not a hill in La Plata? These bare questions at once satis- 

 fied and silenced the greater number; some, however (like a 

 few in England who are a century behind), thought that all 

 such inquiries were useless and impious, and that it was 

 quite sufficient that God had thus made the mountains. 



The Chilian miners are a peculiar race of men in their 

 habits. Living for weeks together in the most desolate spots, 

 when they descend to the villages on feast-days there is no 

 excess or extravagance into which they do not run. They 

 sometimes gain a considerable sum, and then, like sailors with 

 prize-money, they try how soon they can contrive to squander 

 it. They drink excessively, buy quantities of clothes, and in 

 a few days return penniless to their miserable abodes, there 

 to work harder than beasts of burden. This thoughtlessness, 

 as with sailors, is evidently the result of a similar mode of 

 life. Their daily food is found for them, and they acquire 

 no habits of carefulness ; moreover, temptation and the means 

 of yielding to it are placed in their power at the same time. 

 On the other hand, in Cornwall, and some other parts of 



9 



