Gambling, the besetting sin of the indolent in many countries, is ruinously general throughout South America. In England, and other European states, it is pretty much limited to the unemployed of the upper classes, who furnish a never-ending supply of dupes to knavery. In South America the passion taints all ages, both sexes, and every rank. The dregs of society yield to the fascination as blindly as the high-born and wealthy of the old or of the new world. It speaks much in favour of the revolution, that this vice is sensibly diminishing in Peru, and to the unfortunate Monteagudo belongs the honour of having been the first to attempt its eradication. A noted gambler was once as much an object of admiration in South America as a six-bottle man was in England fifty years ago. The houses of the great were converted into nightly hells, where the priesthood were amongst the most regular and adventurous attendants. Those places are now more innocently enlivened by music and dancing. Buena Vista, a seat of the late Marquess of Montemira, six leagues from Lima, was the Sunday rendezvous of every fashionable of the capital who had a few doubloons to risk on the turn of a card. On one occasion, a fortunate player, the celebrated Baquijano, was under the necessity of sending for a bullock car to convey his winnings, amounting to above thirty thousand dollars: a mule thus laden with specie was a common occurrence. Chorillos, a fishing town, three leagues south of Lima, is a fashionable watering place for a limited season. Here immense sums are won and lost; but political and literary coteries, formerly unknown, daily lessen the numbers of the votaries of fortune. So strong was this ruling passion, that when the patriot army has been closely pursued by the royalists, and pay has been issued to lighten the military chest, the officers, upon halting, would spread their ponchos on the ground, and play until it was time to resume the march; and this was frequently done even on the eve of a battle. Soldiers on piquet often gambled within sight of an enemy's advanced post. _Memoirs of Gen. Miller._ * * * * * THE NATURALIST. * * * * * VOLCANIC ISLAND OF ST. CHRISTOPHER.