About five o'clock we arrived at Talca, and went straight to the Hotel
Colon, kept by Gassaroni. Every Italian who starts an hotel in this
part of the world calls it, as a matter of course, 'The Columbus
Hotel;' for they are very anxious to claim the great navigator as a
countryman, though the Spaniards dispute their right to do so, on the
ground that Genoa, where he was really born, was at that time an
independent State. While we were waiting for dinner we walked about
the town, which so exactly resembles Concepcion and Chilian in the
arrangement of its streets, buildings, and trees, that I doubt whether
any one familiar with the three places could tell immediately which
town he was in, if transported suddenly to the middle of the Plaza,
though I believe Talca is rather the largest. It still retains its old
Indian name, meaning 'thunder,' doubtless on account of the frequency
and violence of the thunder-storms by which it is visited.
_Monday, October 23rd_.--Soon after midnight I was aroused by a great
noise. At first I thought I was dreaming, but a very brief reflection
convinced me of the existence of an energetically played big-drum,
somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of my bed-room. I at once got
up and, peeping through the window in the door, saw a military band of
twenty-five performers, standing on the other side of the courtyard,
blowing and hitting their hardest.
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