SANTIAGO. 915 
Half way between the Salta and the city, we stopped at a quinta 
belonging to the brother of Madame Cotapos, or, as I ought properly 
to call her, Dofia Mercedes de Cotapos. This gentleman, Don Hen- 
riquez Lastra, the ex-director of Chile, is at present entirely removed 
from public life, and devotes himself to the cultivation of his farm or 
hacienda, and to making various experiments for the improvement of 
the wines of the country. He has succeeded in making a wine little 
if at all inferior to champaign ; and his ordinary wine, in which he has 
pursued the Madeira method, is like the best vino tinto of Teneriffe. 
In general the wines here are sweet and heavy. His fields appear to 
me to be in excellent order; and all about the farm looks more like 
European farming than any thing I had seen in this country. Don 
Henriquez was not at. home when we arrived, but we were most 
kindly welcomed by his lady, who is of the family of Izquierda de 
Xara Quemada. She was in the midst of her eight fine children, 
instructing some, and working for others. The house is small, but 
new building is going on sufficient to double its size ; and the prin- 
cipal rooms are to be built with chimneys, and English grates are to 
supersede brasseros: these steps towards improvement are great in 
this country, which has hitherto remained, of all others, the most 
backward, partly from political, partly from moral and physical causes 
peculiar to itself, The ex-director soon came in: he appeared to be 
a plain sensible man, of simple but courteous manners ; and, very 
soon, in his conversation I discerned a polish that here must have 
been acquired from books, and a strength that the circumstances 
of an active life engaged in such a revolution as has taken place 
may well have produced. Yet I should think him a slow man, and, 
perhaps, not gifted with that readiness and presence of mind calcu- 
lated to meet extraordinary occurrences which are absolutely neces- 
sary for public men at such a time. The present study of Don 
Henriquez is small, and might excite a smile in a London or Parisian 
statesman, accustomed to all the luxuries of labour; but the new 
house will give room toa larger library, directed by the same good 
sense that has hitherto preferred useful to ornamental learning. 
