THE GREAT CORDILLERA. 



191 



lazy, indolent, bloated monks and priests, with 

 their heads shaved in different ways*, wearing 

 enormous flat hats, and dressed, some in white 

 serge cowls and gowns, and others in black. The 

 men all touch their hats to these drones, who are 

 also to be seen in the houses, leaning over the backs 

 of their chairs, and talking to women Avho are evi- 

 dently of the most abandoned class of society. 

 The number of people of this description at San- 

 tiago is quite extraordinary. The lower rooms of 

 the most reputable houses are invariably let to 

 them, and it is really shocking beyond description 

 to see them sitting at their doors, with a candle in 



* 1 was one day in a hair-dresser's shop at Santiago, when a 

 priest came in to have his head shaved, and I stopped to see 

 the operation. The priest was a sleek fat man of about forty, 

 •with a remarkably short nose and a sallow complexion. The 

 man lathered him with the greatest respect, and then shaved the 

 lower part of his head about an inch above his ears all round, 

 and discovered bumps which a student of Gall and Spurzheim 

 would have been shocked at. His head was as deadly white as 

 young pork; and while the barber was turning the priest's head 

 in different directions, I really thought it altogether the most 

 uncivilized operation I had ever witnessed; and when it was 

 iSnished, and the man stood up, he looked so very grotesque 

 tliat I could scarcely refrain from laughing. 



