The Opelousas courier., 1891-02-07
COUNTRY LIFE IN CHILL.
PRIMITIVE WAYS OF LIvINGNEAR
THE ANDES.
Plain Food and Clothing Of the Ma
tives-A Profusion of Water
melons-The Initiative aPeopes.''

Plain Food and Clothing of the Ma
tives-A Profusion of Water
melons-The Initiative "Peones."
Agricultural Chill is a pleasant and in
teresting country to visit. The scenery,
suggesting memories alternately of Cali
fornia, Switzerland and Northern Italy,
is both grand and charming. Nothing
can be seen more majestic and impressive
than the main ridge of the Andes. with
the volcanic peaks white with snow,
while occasionally toward the south some
crater shoots up volumes of smoke and
lava, as Villa RIGA did about the time
that I was at Traiguen. Nothing can be
more charming than the scenery along
the Rio Bio-Bio, whose sinuous banks
the railway follows between San Rosendo
and Conception. In parts this river, the
longest and broadest in the Republic,
having a course of 222 miles, reminds
one of the Loire, except that it flows
continuously between sloping and often
wooded hills. Like the Loire, it is full
of shifting sand banks, some of clean,
yellow sand, others of black volcanic
sand; and these, a. the water varies in
depth, give to the surface a MORE of vio-
let and yellowish green. AS for the rus
tic population, and the incidents of life
along the road, they offer plenty of ma
terial for the painter, and food for re-
Election to the student of manner
Here indeed is primitive civilization,
needing no house furniture, no comfort,
very elementary clothing, and only the
simplest forms of ceramic ware. What
palmer food could be found than bread,
beans and onion pie2 What more natural
drinking vessel than a calabasha What
less complex vestment than the Upon.
cho2" What shoe more easily made than
a bit of cowhide tied on with thongsi
What more refreshing and obvious COM:
bination of food and drink than the fami-
liar watermelon, which would seem to be
the chief and only n%ourishment taken by
many of the poorer Chiliansa In the
stations you see whole trains loaded with
watermelons. In the towns watermelons
are sold in every shop, and piles of them
are stacked in the streets wherever there
is an open-air breakfast stall. On the
steamers that ply between the ports of
the Pacific the decks are encountered
with the inevitable melons, and the water
in the harbors is covered with the float
ing rinds Of empty ones. In no other
country have I seen such universal
consumption of watermelons except
along the banks of the Danube, where the
peasants are no better lodged and no
better fed than those of Chill. Ali this
I say not in dispraise of the Chilian s'pe-
ones" On the contrary, lam convinced
that they are fine fellows in their way
and splendid workers, esp cially by the
piece. No Europeans can surpass them
in strength and endurance. Above all,
no Europeans could exist in thu same
conditions of alimentation and habita-
ton. In Chilli the 'speonies" live lit
orally like pigs, both in the country and
in the towns, regardless of hygiene or
eve the most ordinary sanitary precau-
tions. The consequence 10 that infant
mortality is great; the infants die like
flies, and those who survive are only
the strongest and the fttest. This rural
and urban working population is igno-
rant, though not unintelligent. The
'speones" can rarely read or write, but
they have a natural talent for imitation,
and when once they have been shown
how to do a thing they will go ON doing
it; thus they learn in a few lessons to
manage agricultural machinery, and
when they have onee learned they do not
forget. As for morality, it is to be
feared that they have but little. They
are not afraid of death themss-~1s, and
have not much respect for the life of
others, and both men and women alike
appear to have inherited a fair dose Of
superstition and many queer beliefs from
their Indian ancestors, together with a
numbe2 OF silly remedies. The women,
when they have a headache, paste. rounds
of paper on their temples, or the pip Of
a watermelon. II they feel anything the
matter with their eyes they will plaster
their cheeks over with leaves. Indeed,
you rarely see q woman who has not
something struck on her face. all these.
defects, all these supersti ions, and all
this neglect of the laws of hygiene Presi-
dent Balmaceda hopes to eradicate by
education, and therefore, we see, not
without surprise, in rustic townships likd
TraSguen, fine school-houses being built
at a cost of sec, 600, before there is yet
q single brick house within the district.
This policy Of building schools and pro-
noting education is being actively carried
on throughout Chill. Wherever you go you
see q fine school being built, and at no
great distance from it an equally fine
new prison, and the chances are that the
cells of the latter will be filed sooner
than the elassrooms of the former.
However, the education of the masses
has been n of the great cards of mod
ern republicanism in Europe and in the
United States, and it is therefore not as
tonishing to find L ~itative Chilli follow
in the wake, perhaps a little hastily
and a little blindly.-Hafper's Magazine.