264 JOURNAL. 



lihood. As soon as I had changed my dress I went out to walk round 

 the little town, whicli I found laid out with great neatness ; and 

 admired the gardens and fields, though I could perceive that San 

 Francisco had once boasted inhabitants of a higher class than those I 

 saw. The best houses are shut up, and there was an air of decay in 

 their immediate neighbourhood. They did belong to the Carreras. 

 The heiress, Dona Xaviera, is now living as an exile at Monte Video. 

 I "went towards the Placa, where there are the church and convent of 

 the Franciscans, and several extremely good houses. I was attracted 

 by a great crowd at the door of one of these. The mounted guasos 

 were standing by with their hats off, and every body seemed as if 

 performing an act of devotion. I was a little astonished when I 

 arrived at the centre of the crowd, to which every body made way for 

 me, to find nine persons dancing, as the Spaniards say, con mucho 

 compos. They were arranged like nine-pins, the centre one being a 

 young boy dressed in a grotesque manner, who only changed his place 

 occasionally with two others, one of whom had a guitar, the other a 

 ravel. The height and size of limb of the dancers might have belonged 

 to men, the apparel was female ; and I thought I had been suddenly 

 introduced to a tribe of Patagonian women, and enquired of a by- 

 stander whence they came, when I received the following information 

 concerning the dancers and the dance. — When the Franciscans first 

 began the conversion of the Indians in this part of Chile, they fixed 

 their convent at Talagante, the village of the palms which we passed 

 through the other day, their proselytes being the caciques of Talagante, 

 Yupeo, and Chenigue. The good fathers found that the Indians were 

 more easily brought over to a new faith, than weaned from certain su- 

 perstitious practices belonging to their old idolatry ; and the annual 

 dance under the shade of the cinnamon, in honour of a preserving 

 Power, thoy found it impossible to make them forget. They therefore 

 permitted them to continue it ; but it was to be performed within the 

 convent walls, and in honour of Nuestra Senhora de la Merced, and 

 each cacique in turn was to take upon him the expense of the feast. 

 On the removal of the convent to its present station the dance was 



