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NOTICES OF CHILE. 129 



great number of business men of the city as well as strangers. 

 The strangest mixture of people congregates here. The gay- 

 youth sips his chocolate or coffee with " bizcochuelo" or cake, 

 beside the tonsured friar, regaling himself on a mutton chop 

 and a bottle of claret. The countenances of some are severe 

 and business like; some light and careless, and others, dig- 

 nified but mild. Parties of two, or three, or four, scattered 

 over the long hall, around small tables, contrast with each 

 other; some are talking in low tones, others are disputatious, 

 others jocular, and others, again, only argumentative. Such is 

 El Cafe del Comercio. Nearly opposite to it is another, called 

 El Cafe de la Nacion, which is not so much frequented. Both 

 are furnished with billiard tables. That game is as necessary 

 to the happiness of a Chileno, and in fact to every man with 

 Spanish blood in his veins, as eating or smoking cigars. 



Having ^established myself as comfortably as circumstances 

 would allcjw, I at once commenced visiting and examining the 

 few 'Uions" contained in the Chilian capital. 



The plain on which Santiago stands, extends about forty 

 miles north and south, and fifteen east and west, being shut in 

 on one side by the Andes, and on the other by Cuesta del Prado 

 and the continuous hills. On the south it is bounded by the 

 river Ma}'po, and on the north by the high hills beyond Colina. 



One of the most interesting coincidences within my know- 

 ledge is, that all the colonies of Europe bear a striking resem- 

 blance, in the features of the soil and landscape, to the mother 

 country from which they respectively sprang. Who does not 

 perceive the likeness between Portugal and Brazil? No one 

 can gaze from the summit of the Cuesta del Prado, upon the 

 vega on which stands Santiago, without recurring to Granada, 

 and a busy fancy may easily compare St. Lucia with the rock 

 of the Alhambra, and going back to the early ages, see in the 

 Araucanian and Spanish heroes in Chile, a repetition of the 

 Castillians and Moors. The variety of arid plains, fertile val- 

 leys, and snowy mountains, in the Spanish part of South Ame- 

 rica, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, produces a scenery 

 strikingly like that of Spain, though the portrait is colossal in 

 its dimensions. To carry out the comparison, is not the face 

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