BOUND CAPE HOEN VALPARAISO — SANTIAGO. 101 



airing my Spanish ! As she came alongside^ I began, 

 " Tienes usted, amigo mio.''^ " Oh, you can^t come the 

 native over us just yet, young man," replied an 

 immensely tall specimen of the British human race, as 

 he clambered up the side of the vessel. ^' No, Fm d — d 

 if he can," exclaimed his companion, as he crossed the 

 bulwarks, with a passing allusion to his eyes in the old 

 matter-of-fact style of swearing. A young custom-house 

 clerk accompanied them, with patent leather boots and a 

 bobtail coat, whose double you can see any day by the score 

 at Liverpool ^change or docks. Nor was the illusion a 

 whit the less dispelled when I landed. I found the Yale 

 of Paradise simply an over-crowded town, inhabited by 

 an intensely money-loving set of people, whose one sole 

 object in life consists in making money; it is in reality 

 a sort of English colony. You find there the same oaths, 

 the same beer, the same ship chandlers, the same tick- 

 going tailors and tobacconists, old-clothes men, sailors, 

 gin palaces, billiard rooms, narrow dirty streets, and 

 smells, that you do in any seaport in the three kingdoms; 

 and positively there is the " real old original Whitechapel 

 Chicken," professor of the noble art, who keeps a ratting 

 pit and sells boxing gloves. Alas for the proud and 

 haughty caballeros ! — the very dirtiest and smelliest 

 edition of a Barcelona Spaniard. The dark-eyed 

 senoritas ! — I know no living female that can be com- 

 pared with a Chilena in the way of dirt and untidi- 

 ness. The magnificent palaces ! — a few respectable- 

 looking business houses, with respectable commer- 

 cial looking gentlemen inside them busily engaged in 

 solving that wonderful problem of making two dollars 

 into three. In fact, Valparaiso is a sham — a regular 

 swindle; as it stares at you out of the map all the 



