Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-11-11
COSMOPOLITAN SCENES.

What One Can See in the Course of . RaIl.
 road Journey in South America.
 It was an agreeable surprise with which beheld the railway train that was waiting for us at Llaillai when we steamed in from Los Andes in compara- lively anticipated cars. It was a regu- lar American train, with locomotive and rolling stock of the most approved model, including fine saloon chair car, called here Spooner car, from the name of the American gentleman, MT. John A. Spooner, who has introduced these blessings into Chilli. I entered this Spooner car with astonish- ment What a civilized country this is! I thought to myself. Sa- loon-cars in Europe are still rare. In country towns in Europe you do not find hotels with statuary in the front patio" and swimming baths in the back yard. Even in big towns in the United States you will look in vain for 8 pretty plaza or promenade, such as they have at Los Andes, and, as far as my experience goes, in every Chilian village. And yet here I have been living in the vague belief that Chilli is semi barbarous country, inhabited by rGstG- cOueres with blue-black boards, who wear gigantic diamonds and oppress the poor Indian. In fact, I knew nothing about Chilli beyond it's geographical position, and that, too, only approx. tmately. But here I was actually in Chilli, in a saloon-car running between Santiago and Valparaiso At the door are brown-faced newsboys, with good deal of Indian blood in their veins, but just as noisy and enterprising as young men in the same profession in more northern attitudes. ''El Ferrocarril, La Union, La Epoca tengo!" they cry. LEI Mercurio! Fl Heraldo!'' "Diarios, senor; newspapers! Buy some papers to read on the road, sir!''
 There is ringing of bells and a blowing of whistles, and we are of. Half the passengers are talking En- gltsh, and the others are so cosmopoli- tan and correct in aspect and manners that am inclined to wish for little local color and a little more character. One blond Englishman is reading railway novel; another has 8 bundle of Illustrated papers from the old country; third is reading to his friend Span tsh journal, El Heraldo, which prints It's telegraphic news in English. The ladies in the car are English or Ameri- can as well as Chilian, and their costume would not attract attention in Broadway or Regent street, except for its good taste. The conductors, with their white kepis and silk dust coats, are as cosmopolitan and polite as the passengers. All this, especially the predominating Anglo-Saxon element, is rather surprising to the newcomer, who has yet to learn that Valparaiso is an English town, and who do not remem- Der that, commercially speaking Chilli has for years been more or less an Eng fish province. At Limache we are to get out, our object being to visit the vineyards known as ''Lo Urmeneta," |" situated in charming valley hemmed in with brown hills, about twenty miles from Valparaiso As the Vest inghouse brake grips the wheels and the train slows into the station, we see bevies of ladies promenading on the platforms, dressed in the gayest of sum- mer costumes and the most coque ttish hats that Paris invented-a year ago. Outside the station a score of boys and girls on horseback inspect the new ar rivals; for in Limache, as in all other Chilian towns, whether they be sum- mer resorts or not, one of the greatest distractions is to walk or ride down to the station to see the trains come in. The variety of types is great. The olive-skinned Creole; the fiaxen- haired Anglo-Saxon; the black-eyed Chilian maidens, with oval faces and full, puffy cheeks; the blue eyed English girls, who chatter at one moment in the familiar tongue, and the next moment in stately Spanish; the swarms of little boys and girls, happy families of ten or fifteen young people, all correctly dressed, well-behaved, and radiant with health and felicity-pre- sent a picture of singular animation, and an aspect of complete civilization, which the European traveller contem- plates at first sight with unpardonable but none the less real astonishment.- Theodore Child, in Harper's Magazine.