ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
The people flung out into the streets all that could be 
flung out, and also a good deal that should not be flung. 
The dirt was excessive all over the place, when the rain 
did not come to the rescue and wash it all off. 
The boast of the town was its brilliant illumination: 
one hundred petroleum lights all told, lighted up until 
ten p.m. when there was no moon. When there was, or 
should have been a moon, as on stormy nights, the munici¬ 
pality economized on the paraffin, and the lamps were not 
lighted. I do not know anything more torturing than 
returning home every night after my dinner at the palace, 
walking on the slippery, worn stone slabs of the pavements, 
at all angles — some were even vertical — in the middle 
of the road. You stumbled, slipped, and twisted your 
feet, jamming them in the wide interstices between the 
slabs. I never could understand why the municipality 
troubled to have lights at all. They gave no light when 
they were lighted, at least not enough to see by, and they 
were absolutely of no use to the natives themselves. By 
eight o’clock p.m. all the people were barricaded within 
their homes and asleep. 
Yet — can you believe it? —in this mediaeval city you 
would be talked about considerably and would give much 
offence if you went out of your house in clothes such 
as you would wear in England in the country. On Sun¬ 
days and during all Easter week, when I was there, all 
the men went out in their frock-coats, top hats of gro¬ 
tesquely antiquated shapes, extra high starched collars, 
and, above all, patent leather shoes — with the sun 
scorching overhead. The women were amusing enough in 
their finery, which perhaps had been the fashion elsewhere 
fifty or sixty or more years ago. But they believed 
they were as well-dressed and quite as up-to-date as the 
smartest women of Paris or London. They never let 
an opportunity pass of telling you so. 
The most striking building in the principal square of 
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