VALPARAISO. 125 
which is spread over the coarser plaister, both without and within 
the houses. 
The brick buildings, and such huts as are plaistered within and 
without over the wattled work, and tiled, are called houses; the 
others are called, generally, ranchos. The word rancho is, however, 
also applied to the whole group of buildings that form the farm- 
steading of a Chilian peasant. Every thing here is so far back with 
regard to the conveniences and improvements of civilised life, that if 
we did not recollect the state of the Highlands of Scotland seventy 
years ago, it would be scarcely credible that the country could have 
been occupied for three centuries by so polished and enlightened a 
people as the Spaniards undoubtedly were in the sixteenth century, 
when they first took possession of Chile. 
The only articles of dress publicly sold are shoes, or rather slippers, 
and hats. I do not, of course, mean that no stuffs from Europe or 
dresses for the higher classes are to be bought; because, since the 
opening of the port, retail shops for all sorts of European goods are 
nearly as common at Valparaiso as in any town of the same size in 
England. But the people of the country are still in the habit of 
spinning, weaving, dying, and making every article for themselves in 
their own houses, except hats and shoes. The distaff and spindle, 
the reel, the loom, particularly the latter, are all of the simplest and 
grossest construction ; and the same loom, made of a few cross sticks, 
serves to weave the linen shirt or drawers, the woollen jacket and 
manteau, as well as the alfombra, or carpet, which is spread either 
on the estrada, or the bed, or the saddle, or carried to church as the 
Mussulman carries his mat to the mosque to kneel and pray on. 
The herbs and roots of the country furnish abundance and variety of 
dyes; and few, if any, families are without one female knowing in the 
properties of plants, whether for dying or for medicine. The bark 
of the Quillai is constantly used to clear and bring out the colours, 
The dress of the Chilian men resembles that of the peasants of the 
south of Europe; linen shirts and drawers, cloth waistcoats, jackets, 
and breeches with a coloured listing at the seams ; left unbuttoned at 
