The streets, as I have already mentioned, are tolerably lively:  peculiar omnibuses and cabriolets traverse them frequently.  The fare from one end of the town to the other is one real (2.5d.) There are also a great number of asses, mostly employed in carrying water and provisions.

The lower classes are remarkably ugly.  The Chilians have a yellowish brown complexion, thick black hair, most unpleasant features, and such a peculiarly repulsive cast of countenance, that any physiognomist would straightway pronounce them to be robbers or pickpockets at the least.  Captain Bell had told me a great deal of the extraordinary honesty of these people; and, in his usual exaggerated manner, assured us that a person might leave a purse of gold lying in the street, with the certainty of finding it the next day on the same spot; but, in spite of this, I must frankly confess, that for my own part, I should be rather fearful of meeting these honest creatures, even by day, in a lonely spot, with the money in my pocket.

I had subsequently opportunities of convincing myself of the fallaciousness of the captain’s opinion, for I often met with convicts, chained together, and employed in the public buildings and cleaning the roads.  The windows and doors, too, are secured with bolts and bars in a manner almost unknown in any town of Europe.  At night, in all the streets, and on all the hills which are inhabited, are parties of police, who call out to one another in exactly the same manner that the advanced posts do during a campaign.  Mounted patrols also traverse the town in every direction, and persons returning alone from the theatre or from a party, often engage their services to conduct them home.  Burglariously entering a house is punished with death.  All these precautions do not, most decidedly, argue much for the honesty of the people.

I will take this opportunity of mentioning a scene, of which I was myself an eye-witness, as it happened before my window.  A little boy was carrying a number of plates and dishes on a board, when the latter unluckily slipped from his grasp, and all the crockery lay in fragments at his feet.  At first, the poor fellow was so frightened that he stood like a column, gazing with a fixed look at the pieces, and then began to cry most bitterly.  The passers-by stopped, it is true, to look at the unfortunate child, but did not evince the least compassion; they laughed, and went on.  In any other place, they would have raised a little subscription, or at least pitied and consoled him, but certainly would not have seen anything to laugh at.  The circumstance is of itself a mere trifle, but it is exactly by such trifles that we are often enabled to form a true estimate of people’s real characters.

Another adventure, also, but of quite a different and most horrible kind, happened during my stay in Valparaiso.