130 JOURNAL. 
23d.—To-day, for the first time since I came home, I rode to the 
port; and had leisure to observe the shops, markets, and wharf, if 
one may give that name to the platform before the custom-house. 
The native shops, though very small, appear to me generally cleaner 
than those of Portuguese America. The silks of China, France, and 
Italy; the printed cottons of Britain ; rosaries, and amulets, and glass 
from Germany ;— generally furnish them. The stuffs of the country 
are very seldom to be purchased in a shop, because few are made 
but for domestic consumption. Ifa family has any to spare, it goes 
to the public market, like any other domestic produce. The French 
shops contain a richer variety of the same sort of goods; and there 
is a very tolerable French milliner, whose manners and smiles, so 
very artificial compared to the simple grace of the Chileno girls who 
employ her, would make no bad companion to Hogarth’s French 
dancing-master leading out the Antinous to dance. The English 
shops are more numerous than any. Hardware, pottery*, and cot- 
ton and woollen cloths, form of course the staple articles. It is 
amusing to observe the ingenuity with which the Birmingham artists 
have accommodated themselves to the coarse transatlantic tastes. 
The framed saints, the tinsel snuff-boxes, the gaudy furniture, make 
one smile when contrasted with the decent and elegant simplicity 
of these things in Europe. The Germans furnish most of the glass 
in common use: it is of bad quality to be sure; but it, as well as 
the littleGerman mirrors, which are chiefly brought to hang up as 
votive offerings in the chapels, answers all the purposes of Chileno 
consumption. Toys, beads, combs, and coarse perfumes, are likewise 
found in the German shops. Some few German artificers are also 
established here, and particularly a most ingenious blacksmith and 
farrier, one Frey, whose beautifully neat house and workshop, and 
his garden, render him an excellent model for the rising Chilenos. 
* A great deal of coarse china ware is brought by the English traders directly across 
the Pacific. A few silks, crapes, and stuffs, with Indian muslins, also come here; but 
most of the fine articles go at once to Santiago. 
