On landing to take a look at the town, I made my way through a throng of boatmen, of picturesque native fruitsellers and loitering sailors, to the chief business street, which ran along the shore.  The stores, which were mainly under the proprietorship of the foreign merchants, had a rich, thriving look, being crammed full of miscellaneous goods, while the sidewalks were heaped with bales and boxes.  Odd-looking carts moved slowly along with their drivers in picturesque costume lying in full length upon their loads, smoking their cigarettes, and looking wondrously lazy and happy.  Stately Chilians from the interior, dressed in genuine Fra Diavolo style, rode by on their prancing horses, all glistening and jingling with silver.  There were abundant loungers about, in the cool shade of every corner and projecting roof.  The listless men with the universal poncho—­an oblong mantle of variegated cotton or woollen, through a hole in the centre of which the head is thrust, allowing the garment to hang in folds about the person—­looked as if they had been roused suddenly from their beds, and not finding their coats at hand, had walked out with their coverlets over their shoulders.  The women, too, in their loose dresses and with shawls thrown carelessly over their heads, had a very bed-chamber look.  They were mostly pretty brunettes, with large, slumbering black eyes, which, however, were sufficiently awake to ogle effectively.

Having a letter of introduction to present, I entered the counting-house of the merchant whose acquaintance I sought.  I found him boxed off at the further end of his long, heaped-up warehouse.  He had closed his ledger, lighted his cigar, and had just filled his glass from a bottle of wine which stood on the window-sill, when I entered.  I was not surprised, under such provocation to good fellowship, to receive a warm welcome.  My mercantile friend was in the best possible humor, for times, he said, were very good.  Every one at Valparaiso was making his fortune.  It was the epoch of the gold excitement.  Large fortunes had already been made.  The contents of the shops and warehouses had, as soon as the gold discovery became known, been emptied into every vessel in the harbor, and sent to San Francisco.  The lucky speculators had gained five or six hundred per cent. profit for their ventures of preserved and dried fruits, champagne, other wines and liquors, Madeira nuts and the most paltry stuff imaginable.  In five months some of the Valparaiso merchants had cleared five hundred thousand dollars.  The excitement was still unabated.  Shippers were still loading and dispatching their goods daily for San Francisco.  Many were going there themselves, and hardly a clerk could be kept at Valparaiso at any salary, however large.