The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-05-04

is passed around the forehead to help sus-
tain the burden, and another across the
shoulders. One hundred pounds is consid.
cred a moderate load, and with this on
their backs, they will start off on slow
but even jog trot and keep it up for hours
1 without firing.
The Indians, and in fact nearly all the
lower classes, seldom indulge in the luxury
of legal matrimony, simply because they
cannot afford it. the fees charged by the
priests for performing that ceremony being
very exorbitant. Even among the aristoc-
racy II Is not uncommon for young people
TO go about among their friends, soliciting
money to pay the marriage fee. You can
seldom go through the streets and markets
without meeting man with little basket,
VINO 1mportunes you-''F'or the love of the
| Virgin, most illustrious senior, give me a
medic toward the payment of my mar
riage fee."
THE DEAD
are generally buried in the middle of the
nlght-why, heaven only knows, except
mat 1t Is the custumbre, and customs here
rule with an iron hand, from century to
century, being more unalterable than the
celebrated laws of the Modes and Persians,
Tor the latter did change after while.
Women-even the wives, mothers and near
est relatlves-are not permitted to attend
their dear departed to the grave; and I'M
utterably solemn it looks to see process
sion OF chanting priests or monks, followed
Dy men carrying torches and candles, wind
ing slowly through the darkness to the dis
NAL Campo Santo or Field of Saints,' as
the cemetery is called.
Among those who can afford it the fash
ion prevails of holding kind of funeral re-
ception during the week following the
burial. Formal invitations are issued as if
for ball or wedding. The guests gather
at the appointed hour, eat drink, gossip and
have good time generally; discuss the
virtues of the dead (his frailties being for
gotten, as, happily, is the case in all lands);
speculate upon the property he may have
left; aud if the deceased were a married
man, upon the probability of his widow
marrying again.
Meanwhile the dead mans family sit in
room by themselves, arranged in the
order OF their nearness of relationship, and
all the guests come in one by one, to con-
dole with them. At the conclusion to the
enterl alnment every picture in the house
is turned with its face to the wall, the piano
IS locked, the harp and guitar swaddled in
black cloth, iewelry is laid aside, not even
natural flowers are permitted in the rooms
or on the person as decorations, the house
is shut against all visitors for six or eight
weeks, and during that time not one of the
family is expected to be seen at all, at
church or elsewhere.
At the end of this prescribed period, how.
ever, mourning is supposed to have been
carried quite far enough. The family
emerge at once from their retirement and
generally make up lost time by an extra
amount of gaiety, their return to society
being celebrated by grand ball given by
themselves and round of outside enter
tainmentS.
If you were living in Ecuador and wished
to hire servant, you could hardly got one
by himself or herself, but would be COM
PEELED to take up with a drove of them.
WITH A COOK
for example, you must receive her husband
and the rest of her family into your house,
to bed and board, and they will bring along
their numerous collection of domestic pets,
pigs, dogs, rabbits, chickens, ana other
live stock'' and portable property The
husband may have some trade which he
follows during the day, but when night
comes and at meal-times, he returns to the
bosom Of his family and yours. The child
rem of the pair may be utilized for light
services, such as running of errands. weed
ing the garden and watching the baby; but
they are apt to be eight fingeredn and are
always lousy and dirty beyond degree.
There is no help for it, however, and for
every servant you hire, you must expect at
least dozen extra mouths to feed.
Nor is this the worst of it. Sometimes
the COOKS relatives come to pay her visit
of week or two-men, women and child
ren, more dogs, Pigs, rabbits and chickens,
which must all be housed and fed. For
tunately they are not accustomed to 'thigh
living or downy beds and consider them
selves in clover if provided with plenty of
beans, corn cakes, and potato soup, while
they sleep on the straw of the stable or the
stones OF the patio. The danger is that
some of the stranger hangers-on NAV not |
be as honest as the cook herself is supposed
to be; and cases are known where thieves
and even murderers thus gained admission
to the inside of the casa with most disas-
trous results.
In Ecuador there are but two seasons
the lnvierno, or wet, and the verano, or
dry. The invierno. or winter Though as
Economically it is summertime begins in
December and ends in May. The heavy |
rains come on about Christmas. March is |
the Wettest month of the year, July the |
coolest, and in May fevers most abound. |
During the dry season the climate of Guay- |
aqull is nearly perfect, its continuity being |
broken only by few days rain after the
autumnal equinox. This is called the Cor,
donGzo de San Frdncesio; and throughout
all South America the periodical alterna-
tions of wet and dry are laid to the account |
of some saint, whose ''day'' happens to CO. |
incide with the epoch of change But if the |
weather be rainy when it ought to be fair, |
or If showers are heavier than ordinary. |
the fault therefore is always
AsCRIBED TO THE MOON
which inconstant orb, by the way, suf- |
fers good deal of undeseryed blame in |
other parts of the world for the souring |
Of milk, the slow teething of babies and the |
of gardens. Even Byron. |
you know, was guilty of saying, 1.-THE |
devils in the moon for mischief"
1t is during the rainy season only that |
Guayaqull has earned its reputation for I'M
healthfulness. Then the air is as hot and /
oppressive as that of Turkish bath; rank |
lies fostering in the sun: the |
country roads and even some of the CITY |
streets are perfectly impossible; and fever |
and dysenteries do the work of death. |
while the living keep up perpetual war on
pestl1erous mosquitoes, cockroacheS, large |
as the palm of your hand (almost), cent?
pedes, scorpions and deadly serpents.
The very finest thing about Guayaquil |
and of which one never tires, is the incom-
parable view to be obtained from the balco-
in clear days, when mag
1lfcent stretch of the Andes may be seen.
The stranger in these parts will forget
many of the incidents of his journeying in
alter years, but the impression produced
oy his first glimpse of those glorious noun
aims is unfading. A well-known writer
describes it in these words 1.-THE sun had |
nearly touched the Pacific when the clouds,
which for days had wrapped the Cordilleras
n misty robes, suddenly rose like a cur
1ain. There stood in inconceivable grand
eur, one of the most stupendous products
IF the last great revolution of the earth's
rest, as geologist would say; but in the
language of history, the lofty home of the
meas made i1luStr.iO11c INV +bo ,,-o..l