COUNTRY SPORTS AND LIFE IN CHILE. 183 



the mass of haman bodies ; a fire is usually smouldering 

 in the middle of the hut; a few odds and ends of 

 blankets or ponchos serve for a bed for the respective 

 heads of the establishment, and the rest find the softest 

 place on the ground, and sleep there. When I say that 

 these people never have been known to wash, and that 

 they are positively covered with vermin, the effect of 

 going within even twenty yards of the hut may be 

 imagined — you cannot describe it. I remember seeing, 

 about two years ago, a picture in an illustrated paper 

 •of Mr. Somebody's cabin in Ireland, intended, I believe, 

 to illustrate the wretched state of the Irish poor. 

 Why, that cabin was a perfect palace in comparison 

 with the hovels in Chile. Unmarried labourers in 

 farms do not generally have any fixed place to sleep 

 in at all, but lie down in the corridors or in stables, 

 &c., just the same as the animals themselves. 

 And yet I do not know a more contented people in the 

 world ; such a case of where ignorance, &c., it would be 

 difficult to find elsewhere. The mere actual cost of 

 living in Chile is almost nothing, and, as the rent does 

 not trouble them much, their positive wants are perhaps 

 more easily supplied than they could be in any other 

 part of the globe. In fact, with a few cigaritos, Indian 

 corn, rice, and now and then a little mutton or charqui 

 (dried beef) and perhaps a stolen fowl or two, the peon 

 manages to scrape along pretty well. On aguardiente, a 

 villanous compound of sulphuric acid, petroleum, and 

 other inflammable ingredients, he can make himself 

 drunk for five centavos, and kill himself quicker than 

 by any other known method short of actual suicide. 

 Abominably lazy when out of a job or with a few dollars 

 in his pocket, he will work like a very horse when the 



