160 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
summer with a cloudless sky and the mountains so 
beautiful on the horizon. 
We got into Talca, our next stopping place, early, 
and I had my usual prowl with Steindachner. We 
met such a pretty dark-eyed boy like an Italian with 
a basket of the finest grapes on his head I ever saw, — 
a transparent amber in color, enormous bunches and 
very large berries, of the richest Frontenac flavor. I 
have never seen such grapes, and Agassiz who knows 
the European grapes so well said he had never seen 
finer. They are peculiar to Talca and do not bear 
transplanting even to a neighboring soil. There is one 
very pretty feature of these old Spanish towns, which 
I am told is a direct inheritance from Spain, — the 
Alameida, that is long alleys of poplars planted close 
together so as to form thick walls, very straight and 
erect; as they grow to a great height here, the vista 
they form is often very fine. In the evening Stein- 
dachner and I went out into the public square to 
hear ;the music; there was to our surprise a very 
good military band playing with taste and in excel- 
lent time and tune. 
The last few days we had begun for the first time to 
see more real poverty than before. Dreadful beggars 
deformed with dirt and disease, such as are described 
in Italy, hung around the inn doors and implored alms. 
Till then I had never seen any begging in Chili, at 
least only the Indian children in Taleahuana, who 
after I had given some beads to a few of them whose 
photographs Agassiz wanted, would come outside the 
windows half a dozen at a time, “Senhorita, pretty, 
