ROUND CAPE HORN VALPARAISO SANTIAGO. 115 



There is a very good club in Valparaiso, and tlie 

 directors of it are most exceedingly liberal in extending 

 its privileges to strangers ; in fact, the hospitality of the 

 English merchants generally is very great. Some of the 

 strongest London firms are represented in this city, and, 

 as a body, I am inclined to think that they are entitled to 

 as much respect as any other in the world. A failure is 

 exceedingly rare in Valparaiso among the English ; in 

 fact, I do not remember one during my residence. I 

 am aware that Valparaiso has got rather a bad name as 

 a fast, bad place, but I don't don't know why ; you find 

 good and bad people everywhere. I do know how- 

 ever, that what are called the " good old times '' of 

 Valparaiso are gone, and . gone for ever, thank God ! 

 Then it was thought quite the correct thing to get 

 drunk — quite the privilege of the upper ten, but all that 

 is changed now. A man who gets drunk or behaves like 

 a blackguard gets marked as soon there as anywhere 

 else, and a person who behaves himself like a gentleman 

 is as well received as he would be in his own home. 



Some of the shops in the streets are fair. If you 

 enter one of them, you will probably be struck with the 

 remarkable fact that nothing seems to be under a dollar 

 — un 'jpeso ; if it is the omnipotent penny in England, 

 surely it is the everlasting dollar here. If you want a 

 pair of gloves, your hair cut, a collar, a pot of pomatum, 

 or anything else from a toothpick to an umbrella, you 

 never can get a decided answer from the young man. 

 He eyes you, turns you inside out as it were, consults 

 with another young man who has been also eyeing you 

 from behind a box or two in the corner, and, if he thinks 

 you will stand it, says with a doubtful air, as if it were 

 of no sort of consequence to him, " Un pesito, senor'' — 



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