The Smuggler Chief by Gustave Aimard

Valparaiso, like nearly all the commercial centres of South America, is a collection of shapeless huts and magnificent palaces, standing side by side and hanging in long clusters from the sided of the three mountains which command the town. The streets are narrow, dirty, and almost deprived of air, for the houses, as in all American towns, have a tendency to approach each other, and at a certain height form a projection of four, or even six feet over the street. Paving is perfectly unknown; and the consequence is, that in winter, when the deluging rains, which fall for three months almost without leaving off, have saturated the ground, these streets become veritable sewers, in which pedestrians sink up to the knee. This renders the use of a horse indispensable.

Putrid and pestilential miasmas exhale from these gutters, which are filled with rubbish of every description, resulting from the daily sweepings of the houses. On the other hand, the squares are large, square, perfectly airy, and lined with wide verandahs, which at midday offer a healthy protection from the sun. These verandahs contain handsome shops, in which the dealers have collected, at great cost, all that can tempt purchasers. It is a medley of the most discordant shops and booths, grouped side by side. A magnificent jeweller displays behind his window diamond necklaces, silver spurs, weighing from fifteen to twenty marcs, rings, bracelets, &c.; between a modest grocer quarrelling with his customers about the weight, and the seller of massamorra broth, who, with sleeves tucked up to the elbow, is selling his stuff by spoonfuls to every scamp who has an ochavo to regale himself with.