NOTICES OF CHILE» 



125 



CHAPTER IV. 



Fonda Ing-Idsa 'and inmates—Fonda del Comercio and Fonda de la Nacion — - 

 Site of Santiago — Description of the city — Its founding- — Plaza — Shops — 

 Book stores — Dead bodies exposed before the prison early in the morning 

 — Siesta — Shopping at night — Ladies — CostumCo 



The Fonda Inglesa, or English Inn at Santiago, which is 

 one story high, built round a patio, affords but miserable ac- 

 commodations ; the rooms are contracted, dirty, and dark. 

 The domestic regime of the Fonda reflects but little credit 

 upon its executive, Don Guillermo, as the landlord is named. 

 He is a Scotsman, aged perhaps forty-five, with a Burgundy 

 face, and stooping shoulders, and may be seen at all times 

 rolled up in a drab lion-skin coat, with mother of pearl but- 

 tons, gazing on the billiard table, silently smoking a cigar. 



The billiard room is filled for two or three hours every 

 night, with the fashionable young Chilenos, who play till eight 

 or nine o'clock, when they depart to some tertulia. Amongst 

 them were several who had just returned from Europe, whither 

 they had been sent for improvement in morals ; they dress in 

 all the extravagance of Parisian fashion, and amuse themselves 

 by ridiculing the priesthood of their own country, and dissemi- 

 nating the Deistical and Atheistical principles acquired abroad. 

 The only advantage gained by their visit to Paris, is the acqui- 

 sition of the French language, which they speak fluently. To 

 an intellectual young Chileno, 1 expressed a surprise that they 

 did not embark on a political career in Chile, or at least do 

 something to show the value of a visit to the old world. 



These young men," replied my friend, ^^were so depraved 

 in mind and heart, that their parents sent them away in hopes 

 of reforming them ; the success of the experiment may be seen 

 by any one." 



Every day, about a dozen gentlemen resorted to the table 

 d^hbte. At one end sat a Buenosayrean, (by profession a law- 



