The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-10-24

Finest seaport-FemaIe street-Car
 Conductors.
 Special Correspondence of the Journal
 and COurier)
 Valparaiso, Chili, Sept. 15, 1903.
 Why those imaginative Soaaiards of the early time should have dubbed this spot Vale of Paradise" nobody living nowadays can understand. for there is no vale anywhere in the vicinity, and no indication of Paradise. Certainly
 it is the last place in the face of the earth where one would think of locating great city. Ancient Rome, they tell
 us, was built upon seven hills; but Val paraiso struggles uo score of them, for the sirl9le reason that there is not room enough on the narrow strip of
 sand between the rugged heights and the sea. The -shoe-euryed coast, in it's widest part, admits of eight or ten streets, hut they extend only short
 distance; in another and longer place
 there is space for but two streets be-
 tween the cliffs and the rolling surf. The greater part of the city, however,
 occupies a slightly sloping incline, and
 the calles (streets) are laid out in regu- lar squares. As the population in- | creased the rocky hills had to be made available. and now the town, which runs along shore some three or four miles, extends back considerable dis tance. More correctly speaking, it ex- tends skyward. one mans house being
 built above another's, reached by long stairWays, winding roads and lifts"
 propelled by steam, similar to those in use at Niagara.
 Making neighborly calls on foot in this portion of the city is too hard work
 to become very popular, while couling
 down again is positively dangerous 1 when the walks happen to be slippery after rain. Thus one mans vegeta- ble garden seems to hang suspended
 directly over another mans roof; and the latter, by reaching out of his upper | windows, may almost help himself to the formers carrots and cabbages.
 An acquaintance of mine, who has a
 house opposite the Hotel Colon, set close up to the steep. rocky escarpment, re lates an amusing story of how he heard l a terrible commotion one night in the
 rear of his bedroom, and having | searched in vain for the cause thereof, I remained sleepless till daylight, wonder ing whether it were a Visitation of ghosts or burglars. Morning revealed q strange but ludicrous sight. A horse, | which had been seen the day betora grazing peacefully upon the lawn above, had somehow slipped off in the dark
 ness and stuck fast in the narrow space between the cliff and the, back wall of my friends house on the terrace next below, where his fruitless struggles I had nearly demolished the clapboards. By dint of lowered ropes the luckless
 animal was at length rescued, very lit tie the worse for his adventure
 There are two kinds of public hacks l for hire in Valparaiso, and one chooses 1 between them according to his destina- | tion. If his excursion Is confined to the
 lower town he takes an ordinary car- | riage with two horses attached; but if l the hilus are to be ascended, he must pay nearly double the price for heav- l ier-built vehicle to which three horses
 are harnessed abreast-the law forbid | ding any others to go up. The hap-haz- I gard paths that were originally laid out
 by the goats that fed upon the mountain sides, meander about in the most con- 1 fusing manner, but are now abandoned
 except by pedestrians, for all wheels go by the splendid new road winding about I the hills, which has lately been comple- l ted distance of nine miles.
 l Viewed from the bay, especially of an
 evening, Valparaiso presents a fine ap- I pearance, with long lines of lights, one
 above another, making it look like a city turned up on end. Electric lights
 placed upon the crests of the cliff throw 1 their rays and intensified shadows upon I the streets and terraces and gardens
 below, with the effect of moonlight.
 But by "the garish light of day" the
 rows of houses and huts of irregular shapes and elevations, clinging to the precipices like So many birds nests look I as if one stiff breeze would blow them
 off in the bay. l The late lamented author and travel
 CT, MT. Vincent, likens Valparaiso to a vast amphitheater, regarding the ridges of the hills as aisles, and is reminded of Hong Kong by it's sloping position,
 and of Quebec by it's spurs which termi- \ nate in bluffs at the waters edge. At
 any rate, despite it's natural disadvan-
 tages, Chilian enterprise, assisted by
 English, French and German capital, have made here a splendid city-the finest port in South America, in fact the l only one on the southern continent I which can show all modern improve
 ments. It resembles city of France or 1 Germany, or even the United States,
 more nearly than it does any other in I this country. But our northern repub- I lie has no city with only Valparaiso's l population, Gone hundred and twenty
 five thousand), which contains so many
 fine shops and such display of costly l and luxuriant articles. The foreign ele-
 ment is large and wealthy, the natives l proud and prosperous, and, like the I nearby capital, Santiago, the place is l famous for the extravaganza of it's citi- l Zens. Many of the private residences
 are palaces in their proportions and l adornments, and millionaires are as I common here as ten-thousand-dollar people at home. The principal commer-
 cial street, called Calle Victoria, stretch