TRANSIT DUTIES. 



109 



The plaza is free from market people, for there is a regular market -house. 

 The dwellings are well built, of stone and adobe. The home and for- 

 eign trade appears to be possessed with a life seldom met with, in an 

 inland town, without shipping or railroads. The people appear to be 

 active. There is less lounging against the door-posts. The place has a 

 healthy appearance. 



There is a theatre, museum, library, book and cigar stores, handsome 

 stone fountains, well-paved streets, hospitable people, and a number of 

 foreigners, a beautiful alameda, where there are lovely women, stunted 

 apple trees, and sweet flowers. The Illimani snow-peak standing before 

 us, is a cooler of the tropical winds which pass over the Madeira Plata. 

 Strawberries, beans, onions, barley, and lucerne are produced in the 

 ravines, but in very small quantities, as the space is very narrow. What 

 attracted our attention among the people were new French bonnets the 

 ladies were learning to wear, and the new French uniform caps the 

 army had -just received from Paris ; both fitted like a new mountain 

 saddle, rather uneasily. 



In mid-day, when there is little or no wind, the inhabitants wear thin 

 clothing ; but as soon as the cold wind comes from the Illimani, bringing 

 with it a shower of drizzling rain, the whole population change to thick 

 cloth clothes. The climate is very changeable, and a consumption of 

 thick woollen and cotton cloths are required, as much as thin cotton 

 goods. 



There is a police on the lookout for passports in the day, but I doubt if 

 they are as strict in the performance of duty at night. Wines and 

 spirits are the only articles Bolivia pays a transit duty to Peru upon. 

 Bolivia receives most foreign manufactures through the port of Arica, 

 in Peru, and as Peru is interested in the sale of her home-manufactured 

 wine, she charges a transit duty upon all foreign wine introduced into 

 Bolivia through her territory. Yet, while the duty and cost of trans- 

 portation on the backs of mules from Arica triples its value, there seems 

 to be more of this article used in La Paz than anywhere else, to judge 

 from the noises made in the streets at night by parties of men and 

 women, who roam about dancing and singing to the music of guitars ; 

 some of them play very well. Just opposite my window there was a 

 wine store. In the door-way was chained a young tiger, and I noticed 

 that nearly all the people who stopped to play with the tiger entered 

 and paid transit duty to Peru. 



The tailors are found seated along the pavements here in great num- 

 bers, but there are fewer churches than generally in a city of this size. 

 The man who gets the contract to supply the standing army of Bolivia 



