The opera-house at Santiago is owned by the city, and is claimed to be the finest structure of the sort in all America. It certainly surpasses in size, arrangement, and gorgeousness any we have in the United States. It is built upon the European plan, with four balconies, three of which are divided off into boxes upholstered in the most luxurious manner. The balconies are supported by brackets, so that there are no pillars to obstruct the view. Under the direction of the mayor, each year, the boxes are sold at auction for the season, and the receipts given, in whole or in part, as a subsidy to the opera management. [Illustration: EXPOSITION BUILDING, SANTIAGO.] Everywhere one goes in Santiago and other cities in Chili are to be seen the ornaments of which Peru was so mercilessly plundered--statuary and fountains, ornamental street-lamps, benches of carved stone in the parks and the Alameda, and almost everything that beautifies the streets. Transports that were sent up to Callao with troops brought back cargoes of pianos, pictures, furniture, books, and articles of household decoration stolen from the homes of the Peruvians. Lampposts torn up from their foundations, pretty iron fences and images from the cemeteries, altar equipments of silver from the churches, statuary from the parks and streets, and everything that the hands of thieves and vandals could reach, were stolen. Clocks--one of which now gives time to the marketplace of Santiago--were taken from the steeples of the churches, and even the effigies of saints were lifted from the altars and stripped of the embroideries and jewels they had received from their devotees. In the courtyard of the post-office at Santiago are two statues of marble which cause the American tourist to start in surprise, for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln stand like unexpected ghosts before him. Their presence is not announced in any of the guide-books, which is accounted for by the fact that they, like most everything else of the kind in Chili, were brought from Peru.