agers having had the foresight and wisdom to buy off all rival enterprises, particularly those attempted on a small scale between the United States and Chili.

The Pacific Steam Navigation Company deserves much credit for the skill, energy and liberality with which it has been kept up and improved. But the commerce of Chile and Peru has always looked with anxiety for the benefits of competition, principally from the American side, and there has always existed an unheeded but just complaint, on the part of South American travelers, that no attention is paid to their peculiar habits and tastes, everything on board the steamers the food, hours for meals, night regulations, and above all, the independent brusqueness of the petty officers-being those of the most stringent old English style, so that it often happens that there are fifty or a hundred Chilian or Peruvian passengers who are obliged to fare entirely in the English fashion, so little acceptable to meridional palates, while there are few or perhaps no English on board.

In this respect there is, undoubtedly, great need of reform and improvement, but in every other, the English Company, for the capacity and quality of its vessels, the regularity and punctuality of the service, the professional merits of the commanders and officers, leaves nothing to be desired.

At present the Company possesses eighteen ships, and every year three or four new ones are launched in England and added to the line. The beautiful steamers Santiago, Limeña, and Pacific, are of 2,000 tons each, and were built in Liverpool in 1865. Of the balance, there are seven with a tonnage of from 1,000 to 1,800 tons, and eight with a varied tonnage of from 200 to 1,000 tons. The aggregate capacity of the fleet is 17,956 tons.

The number of passengers transported by this line in 1861, between Valparaiso and Panamá, was, 7,263, of which 1,997 were cabin passengers, and 5,266 steerage.

But this number, during the subsequent years, has been more than doubled, and of course the transportation of troops, which forms a heavy item of revenue, particularly in Perú, is not included in the above number. In 1860, the sum of $18,000 was paid by President Castillo for the transportation of a single battalion of infantry from Guayaquil to Callao. Lately, in 1865, a little steamer, be

longing to the Company, was chartered on account of the Chilian Government, to carry the news of the sailing of the Spanish fleet from Callao to Chili, for $7,000. The Paita, the swiftest of the steamers on the line, was chartered from Callao to Paita, in November last, for the sum of $15,000, to carry important despatches, and performed that service in thirty hours, at an expense, perhaps, of two or three thousand dollars. Another steamer, the Quito, now the Chalaco, which cost the company from $250,000 to $300,000, was sold, after a good deal of service to the Peruvian Government for $600,000.

Another source of profit to the Company is the service of the mails.

The number of letters transported during the last five years (1859, 1863) shows, in a manner not at all flattering to the United States, how slight her intercourse with Chile has been as compared with that of other countries.

About the profits on freight, which yields by far the greater part of the revenue of the Company, there can be no perfect knowledge; but the profits must be enormous, particularly if we consider the large dividends paid to the shareholders, which, with a reticence worthy of the American system of keeping the public ignorant of all transactions for which the public nevertheless have to pay, are religiously kept secret.

Nevertheless, some idea of this extraordinary business may be had from the following facts:

In 1851, a few merchants of Valparaiso formed a Company under the name of La Sociedad Anónima del Paquete del Maule, with a capital of $74,000, for the purpose of running a little steamer between some of the intermediate ports of Chili south of Valparaiso.

The steamer Paquete del Maule made her first trip on the line about the middle of 1861, and eighteen months aiterwards (December, 1862), the shareholders divided a

profit of $11,000, after putting aside a reserve fund of $10,000. Six months afterwards (Jan. 30, 1863), a new dividend of $17,760 was paid, thus making, in little more than two years, a net profit of $38,760, or 32.38 per cent. of the capital.

Now, comparing the capital, the extent of the line, the priviliges, the subvention, and, above all, the monopoly of the English company, some faint idea may be arrived at of the splendid inducements offered by the South Pacific trade to the enterprizing capitalists of the United States, engaged in supporting rival lines on the north side of that ocean.

The Governments of Chili and Perú have always offered the most liberal terms to new companies for the establishing steam navigation in the Pacific. In 1853, Mr. Henry Griffin obtained the promise of a subvention of $60,000, during the term of ten years, for a line of steamers which was to make eight voyages annually between Valparaiso and Liverpool round Cape Horn, or rather through the staits of Magellans.

Lately (1865), the Chilian Congress sanctioned a law to appropriate $100,000 yearly to encourage another enterprize of the same kind, gotten up by French and English capitalists. But the war with Spain has put a temporary check to this important enterprise which will give new life to the prosperous English (not American) steam navigation companies in the Pacific.

The following table gives the tariff of passage by the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, together with the maritime distances between the several ports visited by its steamers. The average of the tariff per mile is 7 cents for passengers, $1.42 per ton for freight between Panamá and Valparaiso, according to the following table:

The agriculture of Chili forms the greater part of the wealth of the nation; and it not only maintains a robust people, who live cheaply and comfortably, but, owing to the low prices of food, affords facilities for working, at a small expense, mines that otherwise would not be productive. The immense exportation of mineral products depends chiefly upon the agricultural resources of the country, and at the same time yields from the exportation of its principal articles, viz., flour and wheat, an amount of several millions.

The husbandry of the country was not, up to within the last ten years, of the highest character. The soil of

the arable portions is very fertile, and will yield, even of the cereals, from thirty to sixty fold; but, with the exception of a tolerably skilful system of irrigation, the farmers and planters were ignorant of improved methods of agriculture. Their ploughs were the rudest and most uncouth instruments imaginable, only scratching the earth to the depth of two or three inches; of subsoiling, the application of manures, underdraining, and the rotation of crops, they knew nothing; and the stubborn adherence of the peons, like that of ignorant laborers everywhere, to old methods, handed down from one generation to another, was a most effectual barrier to any considerable improvement. Still, with all these drawbacks, so fertile is the soil, and so much is it enriched by the detritus brought down by the mountain streams, that agriculture is a very profitable pursuit.

Lately, however, great improvements have been introduced, particularly by wealthy farmers who have visited Europe, and enterprising young men who have devoted themselves to the study of practical as well as scientific agriculture, both at home and abroad.

As far back as 1842, a normal agricultural college was established by the Government at Yungay, a suburb of Santiago, and has been carried on up to the present day, at an expense of nearly $130,000. Improved cattle, splendid breeds of horses, all kinds of foreign trees, shrubbery and grasses, agricultural implements of every description, and machinery, have been obtained by that useful institution, and have afterwards found their way to the large farms, the chacras, and the quintas.

Several manufacturers of agricultural implements, both in England and the United States, have sent their agents to Chili with successful results. The agent of the wellknown Pitt's thrashing-machine succeeded in setting up thirty or forty steam engines in less than six months, in the latter part of 1858; and there is now in Valparaiso an American house (Rose, Innes & Co.) which makes a business of importing agricultural implements to the amount of several hundred thousand dollars yearly.

The farms are usually very large, frequently comprising several thousand acres, and herds of cattle, five, ten or twenty thousand in number, are pastured on the elevated plains and tended by the rough huasos, till the period for their