QUINTERO. 339 



We are a motley company it must be confessed ; and a strange 

 locality we present. The main part of the house is lying flat before 

 us. All the wood-work has been removed ; and the whited walls, 

 nearly entire, of the two large rooms are lying flat upon the earth 

 before the windows of the still habitable part of the dwelling. A 

 little round vestibule still stands, occupied as a secretary's room ; and 

 there some one or two, or more, of the gentlemen sleep : then there 

 is a room, by courtesy called mine, in which Glennie, my maid, and I, 

 all live ; besides all my clothes, books, and furniture, i. e. what the 

 room will hold ; the rest is in the open air before it. Next stands 

 His Lordship's room ; where he sleeps on a sofa, where all his 

 business is transacted, and where, when the wind renders it impos- 

 sible to dine in the rancho, we all eat. It serves, besides, as a pantry. 



Then Mrs. D 's room, where she, her husband, two children, and 



two female servants, all live : two tents near the dining rancho shelter 

 some of the servants. Mr. Bennet, commonly called Don Benito, has 

 pitched his tent in a little grove at a distance : the rancho shelters, in 

 one corner, our prisoner Don Fausto ; and a very strange collection 

 of servants and idlers take refuge in the half-standing kitchen and 

 cellar. Such are the inhabitants, and such the present situation of 

 the house of Quintero ! Persons brought together by the state of the 

 country, that no other possible combination of circumstances could 

 have forced into any thing like intimacy, as different from each other 

 in education, habits, and manners, as they are in rank and character, 

 and only holding together by the common necessity that leaves them 

 no choice ; and that house in ruins which was not quite finished, and 

 had been built with a view to comfort and elegance ! 



Tuesday, Dec. 31st, 1822. — The earth has been pretty quiet during 

 these last days. Once or twice in the course of the day, and 

 generally as often in the night,, there are sensible shocks, and still 

 oftener loud noises ; but nothing alarming. Our preparations for 

 leaving the country afford little time for attention to much else. 

 We hear, however, that the disaffection to the existing government 

 is daily spreading, especially to the northward ; and that the Coquimbo 



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