A careful study of the history of Chile from the time that Pedro de Valdivia attempted to subjugate the Indians, through the colonial period to the revolution of 1810, when Spanish rule was overthrown and Chile took her place in the sisterhood of South American Republics; through the varying vicissitudes of its first half century of national existence, down to the present time, will reveal the fact that certain customs and traditions characteristic of the race have been maintained. In some instances they reflect the influences of changed conditions and environments; foreign ideas have been engrafted upon the social structure and the body politic, but in character, and in general characteristics, the Chileno retains his inheritance from Spanish and Indian ancestors. This is particularly true of their economic use of water. It can be safely said that the majority of the working classes or country people apply water sparingly to their hands and faces only, and never to their bodies, and many of them are utter strangers to its personal application. This does not apply, of course, to the wealthy, educated and traveled Chilenos, who go annually to the seashore, or other pleasure and health resorts, such as Panca, Cauquenes, or Viña del Mar, the latter being the summer playground of the rich. A visit to any of the pleasure resorts by a Chilean family, be they residents of the country or city, is an event attended with much pomp and ceremony. They take with them their horses and carriages, a retinue of servants and an extra supply of clothes for display for the purpose of impressing other visitors with their financial standing and social importance. The vacation season in Chile is usually from the first of January to the fifteenth of March. For two months government service is transferred from Santiago to Valparaiso, the president and his cabinet taking up their temporary residence in Viña del Mar, a suburb of Valparaiso. The courts are closed and practically all business suspended in the capital. Members of the diplomatic corps follow the Santiaginas to the seashore, and the suburbs of Valparaiso, with their hotels and bathing beaches, are gay with fashionably dressed visitors and social functions. Many people who indulge in this annual seaside frolic are compelled to resort to strenuous domestic economy for the remainder of the year, in order to recuperate from the financial sacrifice made in the effort to compete in the social exhibit with those who can well afford the expense. Others whose financial condition will not admit of their joining the procession of those who appear for a few brief weeks in the year upon the social stage at Viña del Mar, close the front of their city residences, and do not appear in public during the vacation season.