KOUXD CAPE HORN — VALPARAISO — SANTIAGO. 129 



for two pages, and then not give a ghost of an idea of it. 

 Santiago looked well, then. 



I could hardly leave the city without visiting the 

 scene of the fearful tragedy of the Campania, or 

 Jesuit Church, which was burnt down with some two 

 thousand souls inside it. Such full details were, however, 

 given in the daily papers at the time of the catastrophe 

 that it is needless to dwell on it here. 



The inhabitants of Santiago have the name of being 

 the most immoral of any in South America ; I fancy it is 

 a mistake. Someone sees the statement in a cyclopaedia 

 or somewhere ; he repeats it, and so on — a kind of 

 '^ give a dog,^^ &c., style of doing business. To descant 

 on the morals of the natives is rather a favourite topic 

 with many writers ; it always seems to me like making 

 oneself out the good boy setting all the other bad boys 

 right. I have no doubt, as far as my experience goes, 

 that the morals of the Chilenos are quite as good as those 

 of our own countrymen and women. 



Santiago is renowned as a city de mas lujo — of the 

 greatest refinement and swelldom ; a sort of Belgravia 

 among the other cities. " I am a Santiaguino" is 

 equivalent to the " Romanus sum" of old. I believe the 

 young men there are supposed to do nothing else but 

 dress. I was once pointed out a tall young gentleman 

 who had thirty-seven pairs of trowsers ; my informant, a 

 native, seemed rather proud of this recommendation. I 

 certainly never remember seeing one doing anything in 

 the way of work, and, as a Santiaguino never reads, it 

 has often puzzled me how he gets through his time. I 

 believe, however, the whole absorbing thought of what 

 little brains he has got consists in dangling after 

 the senoritas, and in this he is the most persevering 



K 



