es are now more innocently
enlivened by music and dancing. Buena Vista, a seat of the late Marquess of
Montemira, six leagues from Lima, was the Sunday rendezvous of every
fashionable of the capital who had a few doubloons to risk on the turn of a
card. On one occasion, a fortunate player, the celebrated Baquijano, was
under the necessity of sending for a bullock car to convey his winnings,
amounting to above thirty thousand dollars: a mule thus laden with specie
was a common occurrence. Chorillos, a fishing town, three leagues south of
Lima, is a fashionable watering place for a limited season. Here immense
sums are won and lost; but political and literary coteries, formerly
unknown, daily lessen the numbers of the votaries of fortune.

So strong was this ruling passion, that when the patriot army has been
closely pursued by the royalists, and pay has been issued to lighten the
military chest, the officers, upon halting, would spread their ponchos on
the ground, and play until it was time to resume the march; and this was
frequently done even on the eve of a battle. Soldiers on piquet often
gambled within sight of an enemy's advanced post.

_Memoirs of Gen. Miller._

* * * * *

THE NATURALIST.

* * * * *

VOLCANIC ISLAND OF ST. CHRISTOPHER.

This island is entirely composed of volcanic matter, in some places
alternating with submarine productions. The principal mountain is situated
at the western end of the island; it is an exhausted volcano, called in
books of navigation, charts, &c., Mount Misery. The summit of this mountain
is 3,711 feet above the sea; it appears to consist of large masses of
volcanic rocks, roasted stones, cinders, pumice, and iron-clay. The whole
extent of land, to the sea-shore on either side, may be considered as the
base of this mountain, as it rises with a pretty steep ascent towards it;
but from the part which is generally considered the foot of the mountain,
it takes a sudden rise of an average angle of about 50 degrees. To the
east, another chain of mountains runs, of a similar formation, though of
inferior height. On the summits of these there are no remains that indicate
their having ever possessed a crater: so that whether any of them have
originally been volcanoes, or whether they have been formed by an
accumulation of matter thrown out of Mount Misery, it is difficult to
decide. That the low lands have been th