VALPARAISO. 



169 



mercial speculations and war are only gambling on a larger scale. In- 

 tellectual pleasures alone supply sufficient stimulus to exertion and 

 excitement to curiosity, on which gambling to see the end principally 

 depends, and leave man the richer and better for the exercise. Seve- 

 ral games are played here so like the games of Europe, and of the 

 East, that they must of course have been imported by the Spaniards. 

 The sort of golf played on horseback in Persia, is played in the same 

 manner here. * Cards, dice, and billiards, are seen within doors ; 

 bowls and skittles, and flying kites, which is equally the sport of the 

 old and young, are exercised in the open air. One kind of bowls is 

 new to me. The space of playing is always under a shed. A frame 

 of wood being laid down, a floor of clay, about 30 feet long by from 

 15 to 18 feet broad, is very nicely laid, the frame-work rising about 

 six inches, or from that to a foot, round the whole : a rino- fixed on 

 a pivot and turning with the slightest touch, is placed about one-third 

 from the upper end of the floor ; the player seats himself on the frame 

 at the opposite end, and endeavours to send his bowl through the 

 ring without striking it. This is a very favourite game, and I am 

 persuaded that few of the neighbouring peons do not lose and win, 

 not only all their money, but even their clothes at it, half-a-dozen 

 times every year. 



It was now time, however, to repair to the church. And there, 

 kneeling before the high altar, we heard the mass to our lady of the 

 glittering brow, and prayed for the safety of the living seamen, and for 

 the souls of those who were gone. I cannot and I will not think it 

 unlawful to join in such prayers ; and I never felt my devotion more 

 fervent : but I was soon roused from it to join in the procession, and 

 then, indeed, I felt my Protestant prejudices return. Our lady was 

 taken out dressed in brown satin, and jewels of value, and carried 

 towards the sea, through a lane formed of boughs of green myrtle and 

 bay. Here and there was a shrine at which she stopped, and a chaunt 



* This is said to have been an Aboriginal game : till the arrival of the Spaniards, it was 

 played on foot ; but since the horse was introduced, every thing is done on horseback in this 

 country. 



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