in carefully examining Valparaiso and its environs.  I should have had plenty of time to pay Santiago a flying visit, since it is only 130 miles from Valparaiso, but the expenses would have been very heavy, as there is no public conveyance, and consequently I should have been obliged to hire a carriage for myself.  Besides this, I should have derived but little satisfaction from the mere superficial impressions which would have been all I could have obtained of either town.

I contented myself, therefore, with Valparaiso alone.  I toiled industriously up the surrounding hills and mountains, visited the huts of the lower classes, witnessed their national dances, etc., determined that here at least I would become acquainted with everything.

On some of the hills, especially on the Serra Allegri, there are the most lovely country-houses, with elegant gardens, and a most beautiful view over the sea.  The prospect inland is not so fine, as chains of tall, naked, ugly mountains rise up behind the hills, and completely shut in the scene.

The huts of the poor people are miserably bad, being mostly built of clay and wood, and threatening to fall down every moment.  I hardly ventured to enter them, thinking that the interior was of a piece with the exterior, and was consequently astonished at seeing not only good beds, chairs, and tables, but very often elegant little altars adorned with flowers.  The inmates, too, were far from being badly dressed, and the linen hung out before many of these hovels struck me as superior to much that I had seen at the windows of some of the most elegant houses situated in the principal streets of the towns of Sicily.

A very good idea of the manners and customs of the people may be easily obtained by strolling, on Sundays and fete days, near Polanka, and visiting the eating-houses.

I will introduce my reader to one of these places.  In one corner, on the ground, burns a fierce fire, surrounded by innumerable pots and pans, between which are wooden spits with beef and pork, simmering and roasting in the most enticing manner.  An ungainly wooden framework, with a long broad plank on it, occupies the middle of the room, and is covered with a cloth whose original colour it would be an impossibility to determine.  This is the table at which the guests sit.  During the dinner itself the old patriarchal customs are observed, with this difference, that not only do all the guests eat out of one dish, but that all the eatables are served up in one, and one only.  Beans and rice, potatoes and roast beef, Paradise apples and onions, etc., etc., lie quietly side by side, and are devoured in the deepest silence.  At the end of the repast, a goblet, filled with wine, or sometimes merely water, is passed from hand to hand, and after this had gone round, the company begin to talk.  In the evening dancing is vigorously pursued to the music of a guitar;