A STREET SCENE.
"In the middle hours of the day I found the streets almost deserted, but they are busy enough in the morning and towards sunset. Daybreak brings a crowd of peons from the country with vegetables, fruit, chickens, milk, and other edibles for sale; their shouting is loud and continuous, as they cry their wares from house to house or walk up and down the market-places. A great quantity of freshly cut alfalfa (a variety of clover) is brought from the country and sold for feeding stock. It is piled on the back of mule or horse so that the animal is completely covered; you might easily imagine yourself looking at a haycock which had suddenly acquired the power of locomotion. There are droves of pack-mules; trains of carts with their wheels cut from a log, and creaking as if in dire distress; priests in sombre black, and men and women in variegated garments, all combining to form an animated picture. As the sun rises above the Andes and ascends in the heavens the crowd thins away, and long before noon there is an almost painful air of stillness over the whole scene.
"Santiago lies in a valley between two ranges of the Andes chain, and about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. Consequently it has both sunrise and sunset over the mountains; the former on the great range and the latter over the western Cordillera. There is an interesting period of the sunset—beginning when the city first comes under the shadow of the western mountains, and ending when the last rays leave the snow-capped mountain peaks in the east. The colors of the rainbow are perceptible in a sunset under favorable conditions; the tints change with the shadow, and we have yellow, vermilion, violet, green, purple, and other hues, in succession and combination, closing with a bright blaze and halo from the crests of the mountains. The last light of day comes reflected from these mountains in the east, and not from the west, where we are accustomed to see it in other cities and in other parts of the globe. Nature seems to be reversed in this most southerly capital of the continent.
"I found the markets not unlike those of Lima. The products of two zones are attainable in this Andean situation, though there are fewer tropical fruits and vegetables than in the capital of Peru. There are strawberries, grapes, figs, peaches, pears, quinces, apples, nectarines, cherries, apricots, plums, oranges, lemons, citrons, and chirimoyas—the latter far inferior to those of Lima. The fruits mostly in demand and largely consumed are water-melons and musk-melons; both are delicious, and grow to a great size, and they are as cheap as they are good.
"But I fear I shall weary you with this description of the city, and, besides, I must be moving to Valparaiso to meet the steamer bringing Dr. Bronson and Fred. The time-table says the voyage occupies twelve days; it is now ten days since I saw them leave Buenos Ayres, and to-morrow will be the eleventh day. To-morrow I will go to Valparaiso by the railway; it is a ride of four hours, or perhaps five, if the train is not in a hurry, and then I can get everything in readiness to welcome them to the soil of Chili."
Frank went by the train the next morning, and soon after noon he arrived at the seaport. He found a bustling, active city, with a population of more than one hundred thousand, of whom less than three fourths were native Chilians. According to the statistics Valparaiso contains 15,000 German inhabitants, 7000 British, 4000 French, 2000 Italians, and 500 Americans, and a great deal more than half its commerce is in foreign hands.
The city is on a bay which opens towards the north so capaciously that it was formerly swept by all winds from between north-northeast and west-northwest; ships anchored with springs on their cables, and were ready to put to sea at any moment to avoid the chance of being driven on shore. A mole, which was incomplete at the time of Frank's visit, gives more security, and when finished will make a fairly good harbor for Valparaiso.
The name of the city indicates "Vale of Paradise," but Frank was unable to see where the appearances justified such a pleasing title. The bay is bordered by rugged hills, that, for more than half of the distance around the semicircular beach, leave only room enough for a single row of houses near the water. The fronts of some of these hills are so steep that you may almost step to them from the back windows of the upper stories of the dwellings.
Facing the other half of the bay is a triangular plain of sand, formed by the débris of the streams flowing from the hills, and the washings of the surf on the shore. The city is built on this sand, along the narrow beach, and up the sides and over the tops of the hills. It forcibly suggests a struggle for position where nature is in a repellent mood.
"Valparaiso makes me think of Algiers," wrote Frank in his note-book, "but I miss the grand archways of the Boulevard de la République and the old castle which once sheltered the Dey and held his treasures. I think of Beyrout, with the Lebanon range in the background, but the Lebanon is dwarfed almost to insignificance by the mighty Andes; I think of Quebec, but the heights of Abraham and the walls of the old-time stronghold of France in America are not faithfully reproduced; and, finally, I remember Gibraltar, nestling at the base of the famous 'Rock.' There is a resemblance to all these places, but when we study Valparaiso in detail we find many points of difference.