130 JOURNAL. 



23c?. — To-day, for the first time since I came home, I rode to the 

 port ; and had leisure to observe the shops, markets, and wharf, if 

 one may give that name to the platform before the custom-house. 



The native shops, though very small, appear to me generally cleaner 

 than those of Portuguese America. The silks of China, France, and 

 Italy; the printed cottons of Britain ; rosaries, and amulets, and glass 

 from Germany ; — generally furnish them. The stuffs of the country 

 are very seldom to be purchased in a shop, because few are made 

 but for domestic consumption. If a family has any to spare, it goes 

 to the public market, like any other domestic produce. The French 

 shops contain a richer variety of the same sort of goods ; and there 

 is a very tolerable French milliner, whose manners and smiles, so 

 very artificial compared to the simple grace of the Chileno girls who 

 employ her, would make no bad companion to Hogarth's French 

 dancing-master leading out the Antinous to dance. The English 

 shops are more numerous than any. Hardware, pottery*, and cot- 

 ton and woollen cloths, form of course the staple articles. It is 

 amusing to observe the ingenuity with which the Birmingham artists 

 have accommodated themselves to the coarse transatlantic tastes. 

 The framed saints, the tinsel snuff-boxes, the gaudy furniture, make 

 one smile when contrasted with the decent and elegant simplicity 

 of these things in Europe. The Germans furnish most of the glass 

 in common use : it is of bad quality to be sure ; but it, as well as 

 the little German mirrors, which are chiefly brought to hang up as 

 votive offerings in the chapels, answers all the purposes of Chileno 

 consumption. Toys, beads, combs, and coarse perfumes, are likewise 

 found in the German shops. Some few German artificers are also 

 established here, and particularly a most ingenious blacksmith and 

 farrier, one Frey, whose beautifully neat house and workshop, and 

 his garden, render- him an excellent model for the rising Chilenos. 



* A great deal of coarse china ware is brought by the English traders directly across 

 the Pacific. A few silks, crapes, and stuffs, with Indian muslins, also come here ; but 

 most of the fine articles go at once to Santiago. 



