ROUND CAPE HORN VALPARAISO SAI^TIAGO. Ill 



some roof and tower, but notliing to call for any unusual 

 attention. 



Perhaps I may here be allowed to remark on the 

 extraordinary facility some people have of seeing some- 

 thing fine in everything foreign ; I suppose it is on the 

 omne ignotum principle. Given an old tumble-down 

 brick building, with all the windows broken and half the 

 roof ofi", and they immediately go into raptures over 

 the " fine old ruin •/' or an old archway or a heap of 

 bricks causes them to fall a-thinking as to who was 

 imprisoned there, or some such rubbish. I have seen 

 Valparaiso and other South American cities described 

 variously as fine, picturesque, well laid - out, with 

 splendid churches, &c. Church architecture all through 

 the land is execrable ; they are all the same — a square 

 plastered building with a few windows, as high up as 

 possible, the only difference being that some are large 

 and some small. In Lima there are a few churches 

 besides the cathedral that are out of the common. All 

 the churches in all South America rolled into one would 

 not produce a building equal to any of our minsters; 

 certainly the styles are diflFerent, inasmuch as the 

 former have no style at all. Eowever, when I come 

 to Santiago I shall have occasion to speak more of the 

 churches, &c. 



On getting back I found my worthy steed all ready 

 saddled, and, if he evinced in the morning a disinclination 

 to come from his home, he certainly seemed resolved 

 upon getting back as soon as possible. After two or 

 three attempts at starting by himself — or, as my friend 

 jocularly remarked, with no outside passengers — he put 

 his nose between his knees and went off full tilt through 

 the streets as if he bore a second Mazeppa. How long 



