Part 30

In Chili, as in all the Spanish-American countries, every man and woman is named after the saint whose anniversary is nearest the day on which he or she was born, and that saint is expected to look after the welfare of those christened in his or her honor. These names sound well in Spanish, but when they come to be translated into unpoetic English there is an oddity, and often something comical, about them. For example, the name of the recent President of Chili is Domingo Santa Maria--which, being interpreted, means Sunday St. Mary. The name of the President of Ecuador is Jesus Mary Caamaño (apple), and that of the Governor of the Province of Valparaiso is Domingo Torres (Sunday Bull). A waiter at the hotel happened to be a Christmas gift to his parents, whose family name was Vaca (cow), and in honor of the day they called him Jesu Christo Vaca. Such blasphemy would not be tolerated in any other country; but the use of the Saviour’s name is very common, even upon the signs of stores and saloons in cities, and in the nomenclature of the streets. I met a girl once whose name was Dolores Digerier (sorrowful stomach).

In Chili women are employed not only as street-car conductors, but they do all the street-cleaning, and gangs of them with willow brooms sweeping the dirt into the ditches can be seen by any one who has curiosity enough to get up at daylight. They occupy the markets, too, selling meats as well as vegetables. On the streets they keep fruit-stands, and have canvas awnings under which, if you choose, you can sit and eat watermelons, a fruit much esteemed in Chili. Outside of the cities the women keep the shops and the drinking-places, and do all the garden work. The laundry work is done at public fountains, as in other of the Spanish-American countries; but the washer-women of Chili do not go almost naked, as some of their neighbors do.

The native Peruvian, the descendant of the ancient Incas, has learned nothing since the Conquest, and has forgotten most of the arts his fathers knew, among them being the process by which the ancient race rendered copper as hard as steel. Thousands of dollars have been offered for that secret by modern bidders, but it is lost forever, and the ingenuity and knowledge of modern chemists cannot discover the process. The modern Inca wears the same blanket, or poncho, made of vicuña hair, that his fathers did, and the same shoes made of raw hide. He has rougher roads to travel than has the native of Central America, hence his shoe is made to curl over on the sides and behind, so as to protect the toes and the heel from contact with the rocks. It is cut in a single piece from hide when green, and is made to curl by stretching it over a primitive sort of last and keeping it in position until dry. The shoe is attached to the foot by a thong, which passes along the entire top of the shoe, laced through holes cut in the hide, and ending at the heel in two strips, which are secured around the ankle. The evolution of the native shoe is found in Chili; and although it lacks the maturity and sanctity of age, which the Peruvian article enjoys, is a rather more nobby

affair. The sole is made of wood, rudely cut by hand with a knife, and over the instep passes a piece of patent leather reaching from the toes to the ankle, which is nailed to the sole by rows of brass-headed tacks. The toes and heel are entirely without protection, and it requires a great deal of experience to keep the shoe on. It is worn in the coldest weather, over a very heavy and thick stocking knit of llama wool, and an uglier pair of feet and legs than are shown by the short-skirted peasant women of Chili were never seen. The men wear the same sort of shoe--not quite so fancy in design nor of such fine materials, however; but as they spend most of their time in the saddle it is not so bad.

The Crœsus of South America is a woman, Donna Isadora Cousino, of Santiago, Chili, and there are few men or women in the world richer than she. There is no end to her money and no limit to her extravagance, and the people call her the Countess of Monte Cristo. She traces her ancestry back to the days of the Conquest, and has the record of the first of her fathers who landed early on the shores of the New World. His family was already famous, for his sire fought under the ensign of the Arragons before the alliance with Castile. But the branch of the family that remained in Spain was lost in the world’s great shuffle two or three centuries ago, and none of them distinguished themselves sufficiently to get their portraits into the collection which Señora Cousino has made of the lineage she claims.

Like her own, the ancestors of her late husband came over in the early days, and in the partition of the lands and spoils of the Conquest both got a large share, which they kept and increased by adding the portions given to their less thrifty and less enterprising associates, until the two estates became the largest, most productive, and most valuable of all the haciendas of Chili, and were finally united into one by the marriage, twenty-four years ago, of the late Don and his surviving widow. While he lived he was considered the richest man in Chili, and she the richest woman, for their property was kept separate, the husband managing his estate and the wife her own, and the people say that she was altogether the better “administrator” of the two. This fact he acknowledged in his will when he bequeathed all of his possessions to her, and piled his Pelion upon her Ossa; so that she has millions of acres of land, millions of money; flocks and herds that are numbered by the hundreds of thousands; coal, copper, and silver mines; acres of real estate in the cities of Santiago and Valparaiso; a fleet of iron steamships, smelting-works, a railroad, and various other trifles in the way of productive property, which yield her an income of several millions a year that she tries very hard to spend, and under the circumstances succeeds as well as could be expected. From her coal-mines alone Señora Cousino has an income of eighty thousand dollars a month; and there is no reason why this should not be perpetual, as they are the only source in all South America from which fuel can be obtained, and those who do not buy of her have to import their coal from Great Britain. She has a fleet of eight iron steamships, of capacities varying from two thousand to three thousand six hundred tons, which were built in England, and are used to carry the coal up the coast as far as Panama, and around the Strait of Magellan to Buenos Ayres and Montevideo. At Lota she has copper and silver smelting-works, besides coal-mines, and her coaling ships bring ore down the coast as a return cargo from upper Chili, Peru, and Ecuador; while those that go to Buenos Ayres bring back beef and flour and merchandise for the consumption of her people.

Although Lota is only a mining town, as dirty and smoky as any of its counterparts in Pennsylvania, it is the widow’s favorite place of residence, and she is now building a mansion that will cost at least a million dollars. The architect and the chief builder are Frenchmen, whom she imported from Paris, and much of the material is also imported. Not long ago she shipped a cargo of hides and wool in one of her own steamers to Bordeaux, and it is to return laden with building supplies for this mansion. She herself has no time to go across the sea, but the captain of her ship will bring with him decorators and designers and upholstery men, who will finish the interior of her mansion regardless of expense.

The structure stands in the centre of what is undoubtedly the finest private park in the world--an area of two hundred and fifty acres of land laid out in the most elaborate manner, containing statuary, fountains, caves, cascades, and no end of beautiful trees and plants. The improvement of the natural beauty of the place is said to have cost Señora Cousino nearly a million dollars, and she has a force of thirty gardeners constantly at work. The superintendent is a Scotchman, and he informed me that his orders were to make the place a paradise, without regard to cost. In this park there are many wild animals and domesticated pets, some of which are natives of the country, others imported; and the flowers are something wonderful.

Señora Cousino has another park and palace an hour’s drive from Santiago, the finest estancia in Chili, perhaps in all South America; nor do I know of one in North America or Europe that will equal it. This is “Macul,” and the estate stretches from the boundaries of the city of Santiago far into the Cordilleras, whose glittering caps of everlasting snow mark the limit of her lands. In the valleys are her fields of grain, her orchards, and her vineyards, while in the foot-hills of the mountains her flocks of sheep and herds of cattle feed. Here she gives employment to three or four hundred men, all organized under the direction of superintendents, most of whom are Scotchmen. She has in her employ at “Macul” one American, whose business is that of a general farmer; but his time is mostly occupied in teaching the natives how to operate labor-saving agricultural machinery.

Farming in Chili is conducted very much as it was in Europe in old feudal times, each estate having its retainers, who are given houses or tenements, and are paid for the amount of labor they perform. It is said that Señora Cousino can marshal a thousand men from her two farms if she needs them. The vineyard of “Macul” supplies nearly all the markets of Chili with claret and sherry wines, and the cellar of the place, an enormous building five hundred feet long by one hundred wide, is kept constantly full. Señora Cousino makes her own bottles, but imports her labels from France. On this farm she has some very valuable imported stock, both cattle and horses, and her racing stable is the most extensive and successful in South America. She takes great interest in the turf, attends every racing meeting in Chili, and always bets very heavily on her own horses. At the last meeting her winnings are reported to have been over one hundred thousand dollars outside of the purses won by her horses, which are always divided among the employés of the stables.

In addition to “Macul” Señora Cousino has another large estate about thirty miles from Santiago; but she gives it very little attention, and has not been there for a number of years. In the city she has two large and fine houses, one of them being the former residence of Henry Meiggs--the finest in Santiago at the time it was built. All the timber and other materials used in its erection was brought from California. It is built mostly of red cedar. The construction and architecture are after the American plan, and in appearance and arrangement it resembles the villas of Newport.

The other city residence of Señora Cousino is a stone mansion erected on the Spanish plan, with a court in the centre, and is ornamented with some very elaborate carving. The interior was decorated and furnished many years ago by Parisian artists at an enormous cost, and the house is fitting for a king. There is no more elaborate or extensive residence in America, and the money expended upon it would build as fine a house as that of W. H. Vanderbilt in New York. The widow, however, spends but very little time within its walls, as she prefers her home at Lota, where most of her business is.

Her ability as a manager is remarkable, and she directs every detail, receiving weekly reports from ten or twelve superintendents who have immediate charge of affairs. While she is generous to profligacy, she requires a strict account of every dollar earned or spent upon her vast estates, and is very sharp at driving a bargain. One of her Scotch superintendents told me that there was no use in trying to get ahead of the señora. “You cannot move a stone or a stick but she knows it,” he said. In addition to her landed property and her mines she owns much city real estate, from which her rentals amount to several hundred thousand dollars a year. She is also the principal stockholder in the largest bank in Santiago. Not long ago she presented the people of that city with a park of one hundred acres, and a race-course adjoining it.

Fabulous stories of the señora’s extravagance are told. A million of dollars is a trifle to a woman whose income is so enormous, and there is nothing in the world that she will not buy if she happens to want it. She does not care much for art, but has a collection of diamonds that is very large and valuable, and she sometimes appears loaded down with them. Usually she looks quite shabby, as she has no taste or ambition for dress, and her party toilets, which are ordered from Paris, are seldom worn. Of late she has been a sufferer from sciatica, which has not only destroyed the señora’s own pleasure, but has seriously impaired the comfort of those who have relations with her. Although a comparatively young woman, being somewhere between forty-five and fifty years of age, she declares that she will never marry again; and there is not a man in Chili who has the courage to ask her. Not long since she took a fancy to a young German with a very blond beard and hair, and insisted that he should give up his business and make his home with her. The inducements she offered were sufficient, and for several months the young man has been tied to her apron-strings, having the ostensible employment of a private secretary. But the señora is very fickle, and will probably throw him overboard, as she has many others, when the whim seizes her.

Señora Cousino has two daughters and one son. Neither of the girls inherits her mother’s business ability, or at least has not developed it; but they are very popular in society. Señorita Isadora, the elder, has a great deal of musical talent, and performs on the violin and piano. Both are bright and pretty. One is about seventeen, and the other nineteen years of age. Their brother, a young man of twenty-three or twenty-four, will share the property with them. It is quite an unusual thing for a youth with so much money to develop the business capacity and industry which he shows. He looks after the estancia at “Macul,” and spends from six to eight hours a day in the saddle, riding about the place. He seldom joins in the festivities that his mother enjoys so much, and is quite pronounced in his disapproval of her extravagance. He is to marry a young lady of rather humble station, and it is expected that the Meiggs mansion, which has been previously described, will be presented to the bride by his mother as a wedding-gift.

The struggle between the Catholic Church and the liberal progressive element in Chili, which has been going on for a number of years, is now at its height. In all of the nations of Central and South America a similar struggle has occurred. In Mexico and all Central America, in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Chili, the Argentine Republic, and Uruguay the Liberals are uppermost, and have control of the State. Ecuador and Bolivia are still in the hands of the priests, and are ruled at Rome. But even in these republics there is a growing tendency towards liberalism, and the day will soon arrive when the power of the Church in politics will be overcome, and its authority over temporal affairs denied. The Clerical party is growing in Peru. It has revived during the prostration of that republic, and although the liberal element is still in power, the Government is so weak that it cannot defy the Church as it once could. Therefore, the priests and monks and Jesuits, who were driven out years ago, are returning in large numbers to resume their authority over the common people and intrigue for an administration favorable to them.

In Chili there has been no confiscation of church property, as in some of the other States, and at the capital there are still over two thousand monks and as many nuns. The Jesuits have been expelled for engaging in conspiracy against the Government, but the outer orders of friars are permitted to remain. A dispute between the archbishop and the President some years ago caused the former to retire from Chili, and the Pope sent over a nuncio to try and arrange matters; but this legate criticised the Government so severely from the pulpit that he was given a passport and an escort of military, and now there are no relations whatever between the Pope and Chili, although the Catholic faith is still recognized by the Constitution as the established religion of the republic. The radical element of the Liberal party favors extreme measures, but the Conservative faction, of which Ex-President Santa Maria is the leader, wisely prefers to take steps slowly, and avoid revolution.

The Liberal party has a majority in Congress, and has passed several laws by which the authority and influence of the Church has been greatly crippled. The Liberal majority in Congress has placed the appointment of bishops in the hands of the President of the republic instead of the Pope; it has declared civil marriage to be the only legal one; it has opened the cemeteries to Jew and Gentile; taken the registers of births, marriages, and deaths out of the hands of the Church, and given them to civil magistrates; established non-sectarian schools, and passed a compulsory education law, under which all citizens who send their children to the priests and nuns to be taught have to pay a tax or fine to the State. These measures have all been bitterly fought by the clergy, but they have been compelled to yield in every instance. Just now the last act of Congress in this direction, establishing civil marriage, and recognizing the legitimacy of only those children born of parents wedded in this way, is the bone of contention, and has caused the bitterest struggle which the State has seen.

It formerly cost twenty-five dollars to be married by the Church, and a large part of its revenues came from that source. The peons, who scarcely ever are able to accumulate so much money, therefore lived in a state of concubinage, and more than half the children born in Chili were illegitimate. Now a marriage certificate can be secured from a civil magistrate for twenty-five cents, and persons cohabiting without it are subject to fine and imprisonment. The archbishop has issued a decree excommunicating from the Church all persons who are married by the civil right, and the Catholics of the country, comprising ninety-nine per cent. of the population, are in a serious dilemma. They are compelled to choose between excommunication and imprisonment, and therefore in the upper classes weddings are no longer fashionable. Some people go first to the church and then to the magistrate, and run the risk of excommunication; but the more conscientious prefer to remain single.

Just now in Santiago there is a young man of brilliant attainments, a member of Congress and a leader of the Liberal party, who wants to marry the daughter of a prominent merchant. The engagement has been existing for several years, and both parties are willing to fulfil it according to a civil law; but the girl’s mother is a devout Catholic, and will not consent to a wedding without the blessing of a priest. The young man is willing to go to the church as well as to the magistrate, but the archbishop has forbidden any priest to marry him without a full retraction by him of his political record. This he refuses to make, and the couple are preparing to go to the United States or some European country to have the ceremony performed.

Not long ago there was a marriage in high life in one of the southern provinces of Chili, which attracted wide attention from the fact that it was the first defiance of the Church in that part of the country. On the Sunday following the wedding the couple were denounced by the bishop from the pulpit of the cathedral, and the Catholic newspaper published some brutal comments to the effect that the young couple had placed themselves on the level of beasts by cohabiting without the blessing of the Church. The bride’s brother belabored the editor so that he will be a cripple for life, and would have given the bishop a similar chastisement had not the latter kept out of the way.

At the last Presidential election, which occurred in June, 1886, Señor Balmaceda, the Liberal candidate, was elected to succeed President Santa Maria, who had served his full term of four years. He was bitterly opposed by the priests, who realized that his success would be their permanent discomfiture, and there were several serious riots, in which many were killed and wounded. But Balmaceda was peacefully inaugurated in September, and the Congress which assembled at the same time has an overwhelming majority in sympathy with the Administration. The issue at the election was the enforcement of the civil marriage statute, and some measures will be taken to reduce the Church to subjection. A law to expel from the country priests who intimidate citizens from obeying the civil marriage act has already been proposed. This will be open war; but priests who threaten to excommunicate will be sent into exile, where they will shortly be followed by the monks and nuns, and a general confiscation of church property will be the next step. It is estimated that one-third of the entire property in Chili is owned by the Church. Much of this property is held in trust for certain saints, to whom it has been bequeathed by devout persons, or purchased by the gifts of the people. Saint Dominic, for example, is one of the largest property-holders in South America, and has an income of more than a million dollars a year from his estates, which are ably managed by the Dominican friars. It is proposed to assess a tax upon these estates, which now pay nothing towards the support of the Government; and if the monks refuse to pay, the property will be confiscated.

Protestantism is making rapid progress in Chili. There are several missions under the care of the Presbyterian Board of the United States, and a number of self-supporting churches and schools. There is also a Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary, and a Young Ladies’ Seminary with about one hundred and fifty boarding scholars; but the common people still cling to the superstitions and practices of the past. Crucifixes upon which the bodies of bleeding Christs are displayed, with all the symbols of the Crucifixion--the sponge, hammer, nails, spear, and other implements--are erected in the public streets. They are accompanied by an announcement from the archbishop that whoever says a certain number of prayers at these places will receive total absolution for all past sins.

A beautiful marble monument has been erected on the site of the church which was burned about twenty years ago on the Feast of the Virgins. As usual on that day, high mass was celebrated by the bishop, and at this particular church, which was that of the patron saint of maidens, there was a

very large attendance of girls from all classes of society. The church was handsomely draped, and cords to which candles were hung were stretched between the pillars. Being insecurely placed, these burning candles fell into the crowd below and set the clothing of the girls on fire. There was a panic, and the entire crowd became jammed against the doors, which, folding inward, could not be opened. The roof caught fire and, burning, fell with crushing destruction upon the heads of those below. The priests took no means to rescue the worshippers, but managed to get out unharmed themselves, carrying with them all the plate and other valuable contents of the altar. Their cowardice and neglect were universally condemned, and they were compelled to leave the country.