are common; and there are some even more expensive. The former residence of the late Henry Meiggs, surrounded by a forest of foliage and a beautiful garden, stands in the centre of a park eight hundred feet square. It is a conspicuous example of extravagance, having cost a mint of money, every timber and brick and tile being imported at enormous expense. It is at present unoccupied, and in a state of decay, there being no one, since the death of Meiggs, with the courage or the means to sustain such grandeur. But though the nabobs seek the boulevard of the city to display their wealth and architectural taste, some of the side streets have residences quite as grand, and even more aristocratic. These more retired quarters have an air of gentility which the Alameda has not acquired--a sort of established aristocratic repose--a riper, richer, and more honorable quiet, that suggests something of social distinction and haughty exclusiveness, venerable solitude and commercial solidity. Another monument to the extravagance of men is known as “O’Brien’s Folly.” It is a magnificent structure, modelled after a Turkish palace, and its cost was fabulous. The owner was an Irish adventurer, who discovered one of the richest silver mines in Chili, and who lived like a prince until his money was gone. His castle is now unoccupied, and he is again in the mountains prospecting for another fortune. “Santa Lucia” is the most beautiful place I have seen in South America. It is a pile of rocks six hundred feet high, cast by some volcanic agency into the centre of the great plain on which the city stands. It was here that the United States Astronomical Expedition of 1852, under Lieutenant Gillis, made observations. Before that time, and as far back as the Spanish Invasion, it was a magnificent fortress, commanding the entire valley with its guns. Tradition has it that the King of the Araucanians had a stronghold here before the Spaniards came. After the departure of the United States expedition Vicunæ McCenna, a public-spirited man of wealth in Santiago, undertook the work of beautifying the place. By the aid of private subscriptions, and much of his own means, he sought all the resources that taste could suggest and money reach to improve on nature’s grandeur. His success was complete. Winding walks and stairways, parapets and balconies, grottoes and flower-beds, groves of trees and vine-hung arbors, follow one another from the base to the summit; while upon the west, at the edge of a precipice eight hundred feet high, are a miniature castle and a lovely little chapel, in whose crypt Vicunæ McCenna has asked that his bones be laid. Below the chapel, three or four hundred feet on the opposite side of the hill, is a level place on which a restaurant and an out-door theatre have been erected. Here, on summer nights, come the population of the city to eat ices, drink beer, and laugh at the farces played upon