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Writing Type: Book
Extracts from his travels in South America.
Keywords: Chile, women, gauchos, Santiago, English in South America
Publisher: , Journeys Across the Pampas and among the Andes, Southern Illinois Press, London and Amsterdam
Archive: Centre of Latin American Studies (CLAS) Library, Cambridge.
Text:
p.102 [Villa Nueva de los Andes (Chile)]
We then went to the shop, and I asked the old woman what in the world we were to do - that we had come out of the Andes, were going next morning to Santiago, or, as they term it, to Chile, and that we wanted food and lodging for the night. She told me that the only thing to be done was to hire a room, and then get a person to cook whatever we wanted.
This sounded hopeless, but I soon found that we had no alternative; so leaving my companion to drink a glass of lemonade, and to take a siesta in the old woman's bed, I went out on foot, following a little boy without shoes, and was at last led to the door of one of the largest houses in the place. The boy went inside, and in a short time he returned with a large key in his hand, followed by a well dressed elderly lady, who asked me to walk in. I declined, and went with the boy some distance down the street; at last he stopped at a door, unlocked it, and we entered a room full of feathers and fleas, and without any glass in the window. "Aquí está'' said the boy, and he added that I was to pay two reals (ten pence) a day. He said I could get dinner cooked at the next house. I accordingly went there, and found a woman who had the remains of very great beauty, and her daughter, of about eighteen years of age, who very much resembled her.
They both received me with the greatest kindness, and they insisted on my lying down on the bed. The old lady asked me what I would have for dinner for my party, and I told her all we wanted was the very best dinner she could give us, and that I begged to leave it to her good taste and judgment.
Away she went to get all the materiel, while her daughter attended to me. She brought me a plate of the most delicious cool figs I ever tasted, and then a glass of iced lemonade, and all the time I was eating the figs she was sitting by the bedside pitying me.
(p.103)
In about two or three hours the party arrived, mules and men quite fagged and exhausted, and I spoke to the capataz about starting early in the morning. He lived about two leagues from the town, and by agreement was to provide us with fresh mules for the baggage, and horses for ourselves; but I could see he was not inclined to be off early, so I insisted on his bringing the mules and horses that evening. He said that they would have nothing to cat, so I gave him two dollars to buy grass, and off he went, promising that he would be back in the evening.
I had just time to bathe, when our dinner was ready; and as the young woman brought us dish after dish, the party observed, first, that she was the most interesting looking girl they had ever seen, and secondly, that they had never eaten a dinner so well dressed; but the same delirium which, on coming from the snow of the Andes, had made them "babble o' green fields," caused them to err in their judgments on other parts of creation; and really, when we returned from the plain to Villa Nueva, our dinner was badly cooked, and the poor young woman was only said to be "rather pretty!"
The evening arrived, but not the capataz or his mules, and we did not know where to send for him; but an hour before daybreak the peon came to say that the capataz had turned him away; that he had spent the two dollars I had given him in drinking with his wife; that he had not given us the proper quantity of spare mules at Mendoza, and he begged us to take him before the governor.
The sun was already up, when the capataz arrived. He had brought several of the poor tired mules, fresh mules for the riders, and a broken kneed horse for me; but he was himself mounted on a fine prancing horse. I took his horse from him, put my saddle upon it, and desiring my party to take him before the governor, galloped off towards Santiago.
p.106
SANTIAGO
I was now met by, and I overtook, men. women, boys, priests, &c. on horseback, either coming from or going into town, all at a canter, and in very singular dresses. Many of the horses were carrying double, sometimes two giggling girls, sometimes a boy with his grandmother behind him; sometimes three children were cantering along upon one horse, and sometimes two elderly ladies; then a solitary priest with a broad brimmed white hat and white serge petticoats tucked up all about him, his rosary dangling on his mule's neck, and his pale fat cheeks shaking from the trot. Milk, and strawberries, and watermelons were all at a canter, and several people were carrying fish into the town tied to their stirrups. Their pace, however, was altogether inferior to that of the pampas, and the canter, instead of the gallop, gave the scene a great appearance of indolence.
The spurs of the peons were bad, and their stirrups the most heavy, awkward things imaginable. They were cut out of solid wood, and were altogether different from the neat little triangle which just holds the great toe of the gaucho of the pampas.
On crossing the bridge, which is at the entrance of the town, the market was underneath me, on some low ground on the left. A number of people were selling fruit, vegetables, fish, &c., which were lying on the ground, and as the sun was now oppressively hot, each parcel was shaded by a small canvas blind, which was fixed perpendicularly into the ground.
As I rode along the streets I thought they looked very mean and dirty. Most of the houses had been cracked by earthquakes; the spires, crosses, and weathercocks, upon the tops of the churches and convents, were tottering, and (p.107) out of the perpendicular; and the very names of the streets, and the stories, "Aquí se vende, &c.," which are over all the shops, were written as crooked and irregular as if they had been inscribed during an earthquake. They were generally begun with large letters, but the man had apparently got so eager about the subject that he was often obliged to conclude in characters so small that one could hardly read them, and in some places the author had thoughtlessly arrived at the end of his board before he had come to the end of his story.
The great plaza has a fountain in the middle, and the Director's palace on one side. This building looks dirty and insufficient; it is of a fantastic style of architecture, and its outline is singular rather than elegant: part of it is used as a guardroom. The soldiers were badly dressed; some were blacks, wearing gold earrings, some were brown, and some of a mongrel breed.
It was just eight o'clock as I rode across this square. The bell of one of the churches tolled, and every individual, whether on horseback or on foot, stopped; the men all pulled off their hats, the women knelt down, and several people called to me to stop. The guard at the palace presented arms, and then the soldiers crossed themselves; in about ten seconds we all proceeded on our respective ways. This ceremony is always repeated three times a day, at eight in the morning, at noon, and at eight in the evening. I inquired my way to the English hotel, and found there a hard working, industrious Englishwoman, who was the landlady. She told me she had not "an inch" of room in her whole house, which was filled with what she termed "mining gentlemen." I asked her where I could go; she said she could not tell, but she offered to send one of her servants with me to a "North American lady," who sometimes took in strangers. I went accordingly, and was introduced into a room which had a mat, a few highly varnished, tawdry, wooden chairs. and a huge overgrown pianoforte. One side of the room was glazed like a greenhouse, and looked into another small room. Two long, (p.108) thin, vulgar looking girls, who talked through their noses, now came in, and told me a long story about "mama," the object of which was, that mama was coming, and accordingly in she came. They were all at once asking me to be seated, and were inquiring into my history, when I informed the lady, that I had called to inquire whether she had accommodation in her house for strangers. Oh yes, she had a very nice room which she could let to me; there was no bed in it, but she could lend me chairs. I asked to see it; to my horror and astonishment, she led me to the glazed side of her room, and opening the glass door, she told me that was the room. I had a great deal of very troublesome business on my mind, and all I required for the very few days I was to be at Santiago was a little quietness and solitude. "Good heavens!" said I to myself, as I looked out of this wretched lanthorn, "how could I wash or make myself at all comfortable, either in body or mind, in such a place as this? Those girls, and that terrible pianoforte, would be the death of me! I am afraid, madam," addressing myself to the old lady, "this will not exactly do," and then out of the room, and out of the house, I walked.
I went back to the Englishwoman, who was very civil. The sun was burning me to pieces, I was quite exhausted, and I begged her to let me lay down anywhere in the shade, for that I had ridden almost all night, and was tired. She replied that she had positively no place. I told her I had been sleeping on the ground for many months, and that she surely had some little corner in which I might go to sleep. She said, "Nothing but the carpenter's shop." "Oh!" I said, with delight, "that will do famously"; so she led me to the place, and in a few seconds I was fast asleep among the shavings.
In three or four hours my party arrived, and the landlady had by this time hired two empty rooms for them, and afterwards one small one for me. She got me a table, with two chairs, and she told us we could breakfast and dine with all her guests. This was not a very agreeable (p.109) arrangement, but furnished lodgings are not to be had at Santiago, and I had therefore no alternative than that of hiring an empty house, and then getting furniture and servants; but to clean the former, and break in the latter were occupations which I had no wish to undertake, particularly as I was going so shortly to inspect mines in different directions.
I had several letters, which at Buenos Aires I had been requested to take to Santiago, and these I at once delivered to a person to whom I was addressed. I had a drawing very carefully rolled up and sealed, which I had been told at Buenos Aires was the picture of a child in England, for his mother at Santiago. The lady happened to live close to the house to which I had taken my letters; and as I thought the picture of her child would be very acceptable, I called and delivered it to her myself. She was in one of the best houses in the town, and was surrounded by a very nice family of all ages. While I was talking to her she opened and unrolled the paper, and after glancing at it for a moment, she passed it to her family, who looked at it one after another with an apathy which quite provoked me. It was then handed to me, and I no sooner saw what it was than I bowed to the family, and left in the hands of the lady, not a picture of her child, but a schoolboy's large, coarse chalk drawing of the head of John the Baptist!
During the short time I was at Santiago, I was constantly occupied in gaining information, without which I could not have commenced my inspection of the mines; and as many unforeseen difficulties were impeding my progress, and occupying my attention, I had neither time nor inclination to enter into any sort of society, or to see any more of Santiago than what chanced to be going on in the streets.
The town is full of priests the people are consequently indolent and immoral; and I certainly never saw more sad examples of the effects of bad education, or a state of society more deplorable. The streets are crowded (p.110) with a set of lazy, indolent, bloated monks and priests, with their heads shaved in different ways, wearing enormous flat hats, and dressed, some in white serge cowls and gowns, and others in black. (I was one day in a hairdresser's shop at Santiago, when a priest came in to have his head shaved, and I stopped to see the operation. The priest was a sleek fat man of about forty, with a remarkably short nose and a sallow complexion. The man lathered him with the greatest respect, and then shaved the lower part of his head about an inch above his ears all round, and discovered bumps which a student of Gall and Spurzheim would have been shocked at. His head was as deadly white as young pork; and while the barber was turning the priest's head in different directions, I really thought it altogether the most uncivilized operation I had ever witnessed; and when it was finished, and the man stood up, he looked so very grotesque that I could scarcely refrain from laughing.)
The men all touch their hats to these drones, who are also to be seen in the houses, leaning over the backs of their chairs, and talking to women who are evidently of the most abandoned class of society. The number of people of this description at Santiago is quite extraordinary. The lower rooms of the most reputable houses are invariably let to them, and it is really shocking beyond description to see them sitting at their doors, with a candle in the back part of the room burning before sacred pictures and images.
The power of the priests has diminshed very much since the Revolution. They are not respected; they have almost all families, and lead most disreputable lives. Still the hold they have upon society is quite surprising. The common people laugh at their immorality, yet they go to them for images and pictures, and they send their wives and daughters to confess to them. Three times a day the people in the streets take off their hats, or fall down on their knees. Every quarter of an hour during the night the watchman of each street sings as loud as he is able a prayer (p.111) of "Ave María purísima," and then chants the hour and a description of the night.
During the day one constantly meets a calash drawn by two mules, driven by a dirty boy in a poncho, and followed by a line of inhabitants with their hats off, each carrying a lighted candle in a lantern; every individual in the streets kneels, and those who have windows towards the streets (who are generally the females I have described) are obliged to appear with a lighted candle. In the inside of the carriage sits a priest, with his hands uplifted and clasped. In this system of depravity the great sinner pardons the little one. Sins are put into one scale and money into the other and, intent upon the balance, both parties forget the beauty and simplicity of the religion which they nominally profess.
p.115 The gold mines of El Bronce de Petorca
After traveling until our mules were quite tired, we arrived, after the sun had set, at a small hamlet of mud huts. There had been a church, but the great earthquake of 1822 had converted it into a heap of ruins. The scene in the village was a very gay one. It was Christmas, and the usual festivities were going on. There were two or three rooms built of boughs and filled with young women and gauchos, who were dancing to the music of a guitar. On our arrival we had been led to the hut of a man who was the richest in the village; and as soon as we had taken our saddles into his house, we went out to join the dance. The sight of a few unexpected strangers added to the cheerfulness of the scene; the guitar instantly sounded louder, and the people danced with greater vigor. Round the room were rough poles as benches, on which sat the ladies who had danced; their partners were seated on the ground at their feet, and their earnest attentions cannot exactly be described. We were received with great hospitality, and in two minutes I saw my party all happy, seated on the ground, and as completely enfants de famille, as if they had been born there.
After remaining with them a short time, I returned to the hut. I found the master very sulky; he had turned all our saddles out of his house, and for some little time he would not speak to me. However, I insisted that he should point with his finger where the saddles were, and accordingly I found them on the ground, outside a little hut, in which was one of the miners cooking our supper. We had slept so long in the open air that it was of little consequence. I must do this man the justice to say that though he was naturally a sulky fellow, he had intended to do right. He wished to have done the honors of his hut to strangers, and he accordingly gave the Cornish miner some eggs, but the man, intending to pay for them, honestly (p.116) told him there were not half enough, which the landlord considered as a breach of politeness.
While I was sitting on a horse's head, writing by the blaze of the fire, I saw two girls dressing for the ball. They were standing near a stream of water, which was running at the back of the hut. After washing their faces, they put on their gowns, and then twisting up their hair in a very simple pretty way, they picked, by the light of the moon, some yellow flowers which were growing near them. These they put fresh into their hair, and when this simple toilette was completed, they looked as interesting, and as nicely dressed, as if "the carriage was to have called for them at eleven o'clock"; and in a few minutes, when I returned to the ball, I was happy to see them each with a partner.
In the morning, before day, we started, and for many a league my companions were riding together, and discussing the merits of their partners. The country we rode over was mountainous, and it was very fatiguing both to mules and riders. I had just climbed up a very Steep part of the mountain, and, with one of my party, was winding my mule through some stunted trees, when I suddenly met a large headed young man, of about eighteen years of age, riding his horse at a walk, and with tears running, one after another, down his face. I stopped, and asked him what was the matter, but he made no reply. I then asked him how many leagues it was to Petorca, but he continued crying, and at last he said, 'We had lost . . . ." "Who have you lost?" said I, debating whether it was his mother or his mistress. The fellow burst into a flood of tears, and said, "Mis espuelas" (my spurs), and on he proceeded. One cannot say much for the lad's fortitude, yet the loss of spurs to a gaucho is a very serious misfortune. They are in fact his only property the wings upon which he flies for food or amusement.
The sun was getting low, and the mules quite tired with the rocky barren path on which they had toiled, when we came to the top of a mountain, from which we suddenly looked down upon the valley of Aconcagua,
p.170 Conclusion
The society of the lower class of English and Irish at Buenos Aires is very bad, and their constitutions are evidently impaired by drinking, and by the heat of the climate, while their morals and characters are much degraded. Away from the religious and moral example of their own country, and out of sight of their own friends and relations, they rapidly sink into habits of carelessness and dissipation, which are but too evident to those who come fresh from England; and it is really too true, that all the British emigrants at Buenos Aires are sickly in their appearance, dirty in their dress, and disreputable in their behavior A poor person with a young family should therefore pause before he brings them into such society; for it is surely better that his children, until they arrive at an age to work, should occasionally be in want in England, than that their constitutions should be impaired, and those principles ruined, which induce every religious and honest man in England to labor with cheerfulness, and to return from his work with a healthy body and a contented mind.
A single man may imagine that he is able to resist the effects of bad society; that he would enjoy the climate and freedom of the country, and by attention, save up a sum of money to return to England but he would find many unexpected difficulties.
The principal one to a working man is the climate, which in summer is so dreadfully hot that his constitution is unable to stand against it, and with every inclination to work he finds that his strength fails him, and that he is overpowered by a debility before unknown to him. He would then wish himself back in England, and his absence from his friends, and being unable to work, would make him discontented with a life which hangs heavy upon his hands, and which becomes more cheerless. because, unless (p.171) he has a large sum of money to pay for his passage, he sees he is unable to return.
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