"Santiago, the capital of Chili, with its population of two hundred and odd thousand, seemed to me like a return to Paris or New York. Here is a city with broad and regular streets, lighted with gas, lined with spacious sidewalks, and equipped with horse-railways; with great squares ornamented with fountains and statues; with hospitals, schools, asylums, and other public edifices by the dozen and almost by the hundred; with a great cathedral; with handsome bridges over the river that supplies it with water; with banks, commercial houses, post and telegraph offices, insurance companies and other paraphernalia of trade; with a public library of forty thousand volumes and many rare manuscripts; in a word, with all the attributes of a great city. From the railway station I went directly to the hotel, and was welcomed with so much politeness by the proprietor that I was almost ready to exclaim with Shenstone:
"Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,
Where'er its stages may have been,
Must sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn."
THE ALAMEDA.
"The Alameda, or promenade, is beautifully shaded, and a favorite resort of the population. Most of the dwellings are low, on account of earthquakes, but they are surrounded by spacious court-yards and furnished with great liberality. The city seems to exist in spite of disadvantages. It has had numerous earthquakes, many of them disastrous, in the period covered by its history, and on several occasions it has suffered from inundations. But it has a delightful climate, the thermometer averaging 68° in summer and 50° in winter, so that it is never very warm nor very cold. Heavy and frequent rains fall in winter, and any one who is not fond of rain should not come here in that season.
"Aside from the earthquakes, and also the wars in which Santiago has suffered, one of the most tragic days it has ever known was the 8th of December, 1863. On that day three thousand people, mostly women, were in the church of La Campania; a cry of fire was raised, and there was a rush for the outer air. The doors opened inwardly; the assemblage pressed against them, and no persuasion could induce them to fall back and allow the doors to be swung on their hinges. Panic-stricken, they crowded forward; the fire increased; suffocating smoke filled the place; and two thirds of that three thousand were burned, trampled, or smothered to death. The memory of that terrible day is still fresh in the minds of the people, and will be long preserved.
"I rode past the church where this calamity occurred, but did not care to enter it, as there was nothing interesting in its architecture, and I have no feeling of morbid curiosity. I was more interested in the streets and the houses, the long rows of tall poplars that lined the streets, and the flower-gardens visible at almost every step. The poplar was introduced from Mendoza; the inhabitants say that along with the poplar came the goitre, as not a case of the disease was known until the exotic shade-trees were planted and began their growth in their new home.
