erious
accidents that had ever occurred from this cause.

It had rained very copiously for some days, and the river had risen
enormously--in fact higher than ever before recorded--and many were the
predictions as to how the bridges would stand the weight of water. The
usual sightseers were about, and, unfortunately, a large number of them
paid the penalty with their lives. They had been duly warned that a
certain bridge was dangerous and threatened to give way, but this
evidently excited their curiosity all the more; at any rate, a crowd
tried to cross, with the result that the bridge tumbled into the raging
stream, carrying with it over 200 people, and many of them were
drowned--the exact number was never known.

Quite an important city is La Paz, and a large number of wealthy
mine-owners reside there, drawing their incomes from rich tin mines in
the neighbourhood. There are also numerous stores from which the wants
of the distant population that reside in the rubber country are
supplied. The larger proportion of the inhabitants are Indians, and I
cannot help remarking that the Bolivian Indians, men and women, are
about the ugliest type of human creatures I have yet seen. Besides, they
are very illiterate, and it is estimated that, of the total population
of Bolivia, only about 30 per cent. can read or write. In the south,
Aymara is chiefly spoken; but further north, Quechua is the commoner
language. I saw several bull fights in the bullring of which the town
boasts, but they were so very disgusting that I refrain from nauseating
my readers with details.

The Cathedral was only half completed when I was there, and I understand
is still in the same condition. I was forgetting to mention that there
was no British Minister or Consul in La Paz, and the story goes that, at
some previous period, a Bolivian President compelled the British
official representative to ride round the plaza seated on a donkey, but
with his face to the tail; the consequence being that the Prime Minister
of Great Britain figuratively wiped Bolivia off the map. Anything which
we required from the Diplomatic Service had to be obtained through the
medium of the British Minister resident in Lima, in Peru. This may now
be altered, but I am not aware of the fact. I remained several months in
La Paz in the employment of a Bolivian magnate, but the remuneration not
being commensurate with my ambitions, I eventually arranged to accompany
the proprietor of