lready 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 rais