San Felipe is a dull, old-fashioned town with a good hotel, the Europa. A couple of hours is sufficient to see all the attractions of the city unless the visitor is religiously bent for the city boasts of several large churches. The original city was square, its sides being about three-quarters of a mile long and was bounded by an alameda with a double drive on each side of a pedestrian promenade in the center. The trees between the roads and the walk are giant elms and maples. The city has outgrown its original boundary and extends some distance on the outward sides of the alameda; this growth has not been recent as can be testified by the crumbling appearance of the houses which are of adobe and have a height of but a single story. The appearance of the place is that of stagnation; a small brewery is the only manufacturing interest but like that of Julius Jenson in Chillán, its product does not meet the wants of the local trade.

The plaza is lovely and cool which is a great contrast to the alameda where the dust is insupportable. In it are statues of mythological goddesses which are of Carrara marble. In its center is a fountain surrounded by a large round pool while in the plots of earth grows a profusion of calla lilies. There are also some fine palms and a great trumpet vine. Situated on the plaza is a big church. It is adobe and has a frame top and steeple. It is painted pink, and on its façade cracks caused by an earthquake are in evidence. The interior is poor and on its walls hang cheap paintings. When any prominent citizen dies a marble slab is mounted in the church for his memory. At the eastern end of the city is a papier maché imitation Grotto of Lourdes, the alms box at its gates being the most visible of its sights.

The drive to Jahuel is devoid of interest. For a couple of miles the road runs eastward along a turnpike bordered by mud walls so high that it is impossible to see over them. The dust is terrible. Soon the village of Almendraz is reached with its narrow streets, ancient yellow church with a clock tower surmounted by a dome, and a Calvary on a high rock at the end of the main street. The turnpike has swung to the north and continues in this direction all the way to Jahuel. A large village named Santa Marta is traversed and the dry bed of a river is followed. Although there are plenty of small farms and the land is thickly settled, it is nevertheless a much poorer country than in the Central Valley. The mountains are devoid of all vegetation excepting a few sage bushes here and there. In the valley cactuses are abundant, but everything has a dry, parched look.

Jahuel, which is the name given to the hotel, bathing establishment, and water is the property of Delano and Weinstein of Valparaiso. The place is sadly overrated. The hotel building is good and modern although the food at the meals is scarcely enough for a mouse; the rooms are small and plain, but clean. I remarked about the scantiness of the meals to the manager. "We can't have such luxuries as chicken every meal," he replied. "Nobody said anything about chicken," I retaliated; "anyhow who considers that a luxury in Chile when it is the commonest of meat? What I was kicking about is why you don't serve a square meal." A splendid vista of the Aconcagua Valley at one's feet can be had from the terrace and the verandas.

The altitude of Jahuel is 3835 feet above sea level, but strange to say the nights are not cool. The water comes from the near by Los Pajaritos Springs and its bottled carbonated adulteration is shipped all over Chile. There is a swimming tank and a sun bath at the establishment. A South American sun bath is a boarded-in yard with some wooden benches on which people recline in the Garden of Eden garb. A partition divides the sun bath into spaces for both sexes, the men being on one side of the wall and the women on the other. Some young Actæons had placed a ladder against the partition on the men's side at Jahuel in order to gaze upon the contours of female figures on the women's side.

Jahuel

At the present time there is nothing to see at Jahuel. In ten years' time it may develop into a lovely park. The trees are too young yet to afford shade. The lawn and flower beds are well arranged but they are now in the transition stage between a desert and a garden spot. Many of the famous California health and society spots to which thousands of tourists make their invernal hegira were worse twenty years ago than Jahuel is to-day. The establishment savors of Teutonic cliques. The majority of guests are of German extraction and pair off into groups. Some of the maidens that nightly promenade the terrace are such past mistresses in the art of cigarette smoking that their bodies and clothes reek with the odor of nicotine. This does not appear to have the effect of depreciating their charms for on several occasions in the bosque I inadvertently caught amorous swains clandestinely exchanging kisses with these foul-breathed virgins.

One of the great advertised sights is the bosque. The word bosque means jungle of small trees. Trees are so scarce in that part of the country that when there is a similacrum of one it becomes famous and is advertised. This bosque is no better than a brush heap but it attracts visitors by a well-kept trail and painted signs. It is distant from the hotel by a seven and a half minutes' walk; nonagenarians walk it in fifteen minutes. The signs, therefore, read "To the Bosque of Quillayé, 15 minutes." Nonagenarians leave more money at Jahuel than young people because the former are so old that they spend at least two weeks there, while the latter, driven to distraction by ennui rarely remain more than a day, unless to enjoy the attractions of the cigarette-smoking German maidens.