VALPARAISO. 161 
but it would be mortal sin to believe or consult them ; from which, 
may our lady defend me and mine:” and little more was to be got 
from her on that subject, though she launched out at great length 
into a history of saints and miracles, wrought particularly against the 
heretics ; especially the Russians, in favour of the faithful Spaniards. 
I find, however, that witches here do much the same things as in 
Europe ; they influence the birth of animals, nay, even of children ; 
spoil milk, wither trees, and control the winds. It is scarcely thirty 
years since the master of a trading ship was thrown into the prison 
of the Inquisition for making a passage of thirty-five days from Lima, 
a time then considered too short to have performed the voyage in 
without preternatural assistance. The people here are so Spanish 
in their habits, that it would be difficult for any one to detect what 
portion of their superstitions, their manners, or customs, are derived 
from the aboriginal Chilenos; and it is particularly so to me, as I 
have never been in Old Spain ; so that where the manners differ from 
those of the peasantry in Italy, I am equally ignorant whether that 
difference arises from the Spanish Moresco, or the Chileno ancestry 
of the people. 
The superstitions and the cookery of to-day are both decidedly 
Spanish, though some of the materials for both are aboriginal Ame- 
ricans : no bad type, I fancy, of the character of the nation. 
24th, St. John’s day.— The balmy nucca drop* of the midnight, 
between the eve of St. John and this day, seems to have fallen here: 
all is gay and idle, every body walking about in holyday-clothes. I 
am sorry, however, to find that the time of the Spaniards is talked 
of with some little lingering regret. The present government, by 
suppressing a great many of the religious shows, has certainly re- 
neck, and put me in mind of the Brahminee thread. On the day of the Assumption, those 
who have joined that Hermandad, or society, pay two reals, and one more monthly, for the 
right of burial in the consecrated ground of the Merced. The scapulary is the receipt the 
holy brothers give for the money received. 
* The drop which falls from heaven, and stops the plague in Egypt. Persons under 
the influence of witchcraft are freed by it, &c. &c. See all oriental tales, and though 
among the latest, yet the loveliest, Paradise and the Peri. 
Y 
