208 JOURNAL. 
testant worship ; forgetting how very short a time it is since even 
private liberty of conscience and a consecrated burial-place had been 
allowed in a country which, within twelve years, had been subject to 
the Inquisition at Lima. He spoke a good deal also of the necessity 
of public education, and told me of the Lancasterian and other schools 
lately established here, and in other towns in Chile, which are cer- 
tainly numerous in proportion to the population. 
Several other persons now joined the party, among whom was 
a Colonel Cruz; whom the Director particularly introduced as the 
intended new governor of Talcahuana, and recommended me to his at- 
tention during the journey I mean to make shortly to the southward. 
The military men who came in afterwards were some of them French- 
men, but they did not appear to me to be of the most polished of their 
countrymen: they sat in dead silence, while some of the members of 
the cabildo, i. e. the municipal chamber of Santiago, discussed various 
questions of policy connected with the projected constitution ; till 
Dojia Rosa, finding the conversation likely to become exclusively 
political, proposed to Dofia Mariquita to play some French music, 
which she instantly did, without book, extremely well, having a fine 
ear and an excellent finger; and I had time to look at the persons 
round me. The Director was dressed, as I believe he always is, in 
his general’s uniform ; he is short and fat, yet very active: his blue 
eyes, light hair, and ruddy and rather coarse complexion, do not bely 
his Irish extraction; while his very small and short hands and feet 
belong to his Araucanian pedigree. Dofia Isabella is young-looking 
for her years, and very handsome, though small. Her daughter is 
like the Director, on a larger scale. She was dressed in a scarlet satin 
spencer and white skirt, a sort of dress much worn here. The Chileno 
men are an uglier coarser race, as far as I have seen, than the women, 
who are beautiful, and, what is more, lady-like: they have a natural 
easy politeness, and a caressing manner that is delightful; but then 
some of their habits are disagreeable ; for instance, a handsome fat 
lady, who came all in blue satin to the palace to-night, had a spitting- 
box brought and set before her, into which she spat continually, and 
