SANTIAGO. 



215 



Halfway between the Salta and the city, we stopped at a quinta 

 belonging to the brother of Madame Cotapos, or, as I ought properly 

 to call her, Doha Mercedes de Cotapos. This gentleman, Don Hen- 

 riquez Lastra, the ex-director of Chile, is at present entirely removed 

 from public life, and devotes himself to the cultivation of his farm or 

 hacienda, and to making various experiments for the improvement of 

 the wines of the country. He has succeeded in making a wine little 

 if at all inferior to champaign ; and his ordinary wine, in which he has 

 pursued the Madeira method, is like the best vino Unto of Teneriffe. 

 In general the wines here are sweet and heavy. His fields appear to 

 me to be in excellent order ; and all about the farm looks more like 

 European farming than any thing I had seen in this country. Don 

 Henriquez was not at. home when we arrived, but we were most 

 kindly welcomed by his lady, who is of the family of Izquierda de 

 Xara Quemada. She was in the midst of her eight fine children, 

 instructing some, and working for others. The house is small, but 

 new building is going on sufficient to double its size ; and the prin- 

 cipal rooms are to be built with chimneys, and English grates are to 

 supersede brasseros : these steps towards improvement are great in 

 this country, which has hitherto remained, of all others, the most 

 backward, partly from political, partly from moral and physical causes 

 peculiar to itself. The ex-director soon came in : he appeared to be 

 a plain sensible man, of simple but courteous manners ; and, very 

 soon, in his conversation I discerned a polish that here must have 

 been acquired from books, and a strength that the circumstances 

 of an active life engaged in such a revolution as has taken place 

 may well have produced. Yet I should think him a slow man, arid, 

 perhaps, not gifted with that readiness and presence of mind calcu- 

 lated to meet extraordinary occurrences which are absolutely neces- 

 sary for public men at such a time. The present study of Don 

 Henriquez is small, and might excite a smile in a London or Parisian 

 statesman, accustomed to all the luxuries of labour ; but the new 

 house will give room to a larger library, directed by the same good 

 sense that has hitherto preferred useful to o namental learning. 



