ROUND CAPE HORN— VALPARAISO — SANTIAGO. 127 



figures of saints, dressed in full costume, with bones and 

 other relics carefully preserved in niches underneath ; a 

 picture or two may be hung on the walls, but, excepting 

 one of Our Saviour that I saw in the cathedral in San- 

 tiago, I donH remember one worthy of mention. There 

 being no pews or benches of any description to interrupt 

 the view, you get an effect not possible in an English 

 place of worship. The cathedral at Santiago is some- 

 where about 150 yards long by forty broad, and looking 

 up the whole length of the aisles in the dim religious 

 light, one is very apt to be misled into pronouncing it 

 grand, especially if one goes, like some travellers, deter- 

 mined to see something wonderful in everything. What 

 I have seen in churches in Chile would rather astonish 

 some of my readers, I think. Some are filled with the 

 most preposterous cheap German prints of saints, the 

 outside cost of which must be reckoned by pence ; some 

 of the figures, too, are decked out in the most wretched 

 scraps of tinsel, bits of lace, and a few dilapidated 

 spangles. Occasionally there may be obtrusively 

 plastered about, as it were, some old silver plates or 

 copper-gilt ornaments, but generally speaking the 

 candlesticks and other accompaniments are of tin. An 

 altar lighted up at night with myriads of lights loses a 

 good deal of its trumpery appearance, but a Chile church 

 in the daytime is about the meanest and most disagree- 

 able place I know. In one church that I entered I 

 came upon two of the most astounding figures I 

 ever saw out of a church, much less in one. One was 

 intended to represent St. Michael defeating Satan; 

 Michael appeared to be, and probably was, the figure- 

 head of a condemned ship, furbished up with an extra 

 coat of paint, and Satan was represented by a large 



