APRIL 27th. -- I set out on a journey to Coquimbo, andthence through Guasco to Copiapo, where CaptainFitz Roy kindly offered to pick me up in the Beagle.The distance in a straight line along the shore northward isonly 420 miles; but my mode of travelling made it a verylong journey. I bought four horses and two mules, thelatter carrying the luggage on alternate days. The sixanimals together only cost the value of twenty-five poundssterling, and at Copiapo I sold them again for twenty-three.We travelled in the same independent manner as before,cooking our own meals, and sleeping in the open air. Aswe rode towards the Vino del Mar, I took a farewell viewof Valparaiso, and admired its picturesque appearance. Forgeological purposes I made a detour from the high roadto the foot of the Bell of Quillota. We passed through analluvial district rich in gold, to the neighbourhood of Limache,where we slept. Washing for gold supports the inhabitantsof numerous hovels, scattered along the sides ofeach little rivulet; but, like all those whose gains areuncertain, they are unthrifty in all their habits, andconsequently poor.

28th. -- In the afternoon we arrived at a cottage at thefoot of the Bell mountain. The inhabitants were freeholders,which is not very usual in Chile. They supported themselveson the produce of a garden and a little field, but werevery poor. Capital is here so deficient, that the people areobliged to sell their green corn while standing in the field,in order to buy necessaries for the ensuing year. Wheat inconsequence was dearer in the very district of its productionthan at Valparaiso, where the contractors live. The nextday we joined the main road to Coquimbo. At night therewas a very light shower of rain: this was the first drop thathad fallen since the heavy rain of September 11th and 12th,which detained me a prisoner at the Baths of Cauquenes.The interval was seven and a half months; but the rain thisyear in Chile was rather later than usual. The distant Andeswere now covered by a thick mass of snow, and were a glorioussight.

May 2nd. -- The road continued to follow the coast, at nogreat distance from the sea. The few trees and bushes whichare common in central Chile decreased rapidly in numbers,and were replaced by a tall plant, something like a yucca inappearance. The surface of the country, on a small scale,was singularly broken and irregular; abrupt little peaks ofrock rising out of small plains or basins. The indented coastand the bottom of the neighbouring sea, studded with breakers,would, if converted into dry land, present similar forms;and such a conversion without doubt has taken place in thepart over which we rode.

3rd. -- Quilimari to Conchalee. The country became moreand more barren. In the valleys there was scarcely sufficientwater for any irrigation; and the intermediate land wasquite bare, not supporting even goats. In the spring, afterthe winter showers, a thin pasture rapidly springs up, andcattle are then driven down from the Cordillera to grazefor a short time. It is curious to observe how the seeds ofthe grass and other plants seem to accommodate themselves,as if by an acquired habit, to the quantity of rain whichfalls upon different parts of this coast. One shower farnorthward at Copiapo produces as great an effect on thevegetation, as two at Guasco, and three or four in thisdistrict. At Valparaiso a winter so dry as greatly to injurethe pasture, would at Guasco produce the most unusualabundance. Proceeding northward, the quantity of rain doesnot appear to decrease in strict proportion to the latitude.At Conchalee, which is only 67 miles north of Valparaiso,rain is not expected till the end of May; whereas at Valparaisosome generally falls early in April: the annual quantityis likewise small in proportion to the lateness of theseason at which it commences.

4th. -- Finding the coast-road devoid of interest of anykind, we turned inland towards the mining district andvalley of Illapel. This valley, like every other in Chile, islevel, broad, and very fertile: it is bordered on each side,either by cliffs of stratified shingle, or by bare rockymountains. Above the straight line of the uppermost irrigatingditch, all is brown as on a high road; while all below is of asbright a green as verdigris, from the beds of alfalfa, a kindof clover. We proceeded to Los Hornos, another miningdistrict, where the principal hill was drilled with holes, likea great ants'-nest. The Chilian miners are a peculiar raceof men in their habits. Living for weeks together in themost desolate spots, when they descend to the villages onfeast-days, there is no excess of extravagance into whichthey do not run. They sometimes gain a considerable sum,and then, like sailors with prize-money, they try how soonthey can contrive to squander it. They drink excessively,buy quantities of clothes, and in a few days return pennilessto their miserable abodes, there to work harder than beastsof burden. This thoughtlessness, as with sailors, is evidentlythe result of a similar manner of life. Their daily food isfound them, and they acquire no habits of carefulness: moreover,temptation and the means of yielding to it are placedin their power at the same time. On the other hand, inCornwall, and some other parts of England, where the systemof selling part of the vein is followed, the miners, frombeing obliged to act and think for themselves, are a singularlyintelligent and well-conducted set of men.

The dress of the Chilian miner is peculiar and ratherpicturesque He wears a very long shirt of some dark-colouredbaize, with a leathern apron; the whole being fastenedround his waist by a bright-coloured sash. His trousers arevery broad, and his small cap of scarlet cloth is made to fitthe head closely. We met a party of these miners in fullcostume, carrying the body of one of their companions to beburied. They marched at a very quick trot, four men supportingthe corpse. One set having run as hard as theycould for about two hundred yards, were relieved by fourothers, who had previously dashed on ahead on horseback.Thus they proceeded, encouraging each other by wild cries:altogether the scene formed a most strange funeral.

We continued travelling northward, in a zigzag line;sometimes stopping a day to geologize. The country was sothinly inhabited, and the track so obscure, that we often haddifficulty in finding our way. On the 12th I stayed at somemines. The ore in this case was not considered particularlygood, but from being abundant it was supposed the minewould sell for about thirty or forty thousand dollars (that is,6000 or 8000 pounds sterling); yet it had been bought byone of the English Associations for an ounce of gold (3l.8s.). The ore is yellow pyrites, which, as I have alreadyremarked, before the arrival of the English, was not supposedto contain a particle of copper. On a scale of profits nearlyas great as in the above instance, piles of cinders, aboundingwith minute globules of metallic copper, were purchased;yet with these advantages, the mining associations, as is wellknown, contrived to lose immense sums of money. The follyof the greater number of the commissioners and shareholdersamounted to infatuation; -- a thousand pounds per annumgiven in some cases to entertain the Chilian authorities;libraries of well-bound geological books; miners brought outfor particular metals, as tin, which are not found in Chile;contracts to supply the miners with milk, in parts wherethere are no cows; machinery, where it could not possiblybe used; and a hundred similar arrangements, bore witnessto our absurdity, and to this day afford amusement to thenatives. Yet there can be no doubt, that the same capitalwell employed in these mines would have yielded an immensereturn, a confidential man of business, a practicalminer and assayer, would have been all that was required.

Captain Head has described the wonderful load whichthe "Apires," truly beasts of burden, carry up from thedeepest mines. I confess I thought the account exaggerated:so that I was glad to take an opportunity of weighing oneof the loads, which I picked out by hazard. It requiredconsiderable exertion on my part, when standing directly overit, to lift it from the ground. The load was considered underweight when found to be 197 pounds. The apire had carriedthis up eighty perpendicular yards, -- part of the way bya steep passage, but the greater part up notched poles, placedin a zigzag line up the shaft. According to the generalregulation, the apire is not allowed to halt for breath, exceptthe mine is six hundred feet deep. The average load isconsidered as rather more than 200 pounds, and I have beenassured that one of 300 pounds (twenty-two stone and a half)by way of a trial has been brought up from the deepest mine!At this time the apires were bringing up the usual loadtwelve times in the day; that is 2400 pounds from eightyyards deep; and they were employed in the intervals in breakingand picking ore.

These men, excepting from accidents, are healthy, and appearcheerful. Their bodies are not very muscular. Theyrarely eat meat once a week, and never oftener, and then onlythe hard dry charqui. Although with a knowledge that thelabour was voluntary, it was nevertheless quite revolting tosee the state in which they reached the mouth of the mine;their bodies bent forward, leaning with their arms on thesteps, their legs bowed, their muscles quivering, theperspiration streaming from their faces over their breasts,their nostrils distended, the corners of their mouth forciblydrawn back, and the expulsion of their breath most laborious.Each time they draw their breath, they utter an articulatecry of "ay-ay," which ends in a sound rising from deep inthe chest, but shrill like the note of a fife. After staggeringto the pile of ore, they emptied the "carpacho;" in two orthree seconds recovering their breath, they wiped the sweatfrom their brows, and apparently quite fresh descended themine again at a quick pace. This appears to me a wonderfulinstance of the amount of labour which habit, for it can benothing else, will enable a man to endure.

In the evening, talking with the _mayor-domo_ of thesemines about the number of foreigners now scattered overthe whole country, he told me that, though quite a youngman, he remembers when he was a boy at school atCoquimbo, a holiday being given to see the captain of anEnglish ship, who was brought to the city to speak to thegovernor. He believes that nothing would have inducedany boy in the school, himself included, to have gone closeto the Englishman; so deeply had they been impressed withan idea of the heresy, contamination, and evil to be derivedfrom contact with such a person. To this day they relatethe atrocious actions of the bucaniers; and especially ofone man, who took away the figure of the Virgin Mary, andreturned the year after for that of St. Joseph, saying itwas a pity the lady should not have a husband. I heardalso of an old lady who, at a dinner at Coquimbo, remarkedhow wonderfully strange it was that she should have livedto dine in the same room with an Englishman; for sheremembered as a girl, that twice, at the mere cry of "LosIngleses," every soul, carrying what valuables they could,had taken to the mountains.

14th. -- We reached Coquimbo, where we stayed a fewdays. The town is remarkable for nothing but its extremequietness. It is said to contain from 6000 to 8000 inhabitants.On the morning of the 17th it rained lightly, the first timethis year, for about five hours. The farmers, who plantcorn near the sea-coast where the atmosphere is most humid,taking advantage of this shower, would break up the ground;after a second they would put the seed in; and if a thirdshower should fall, they would reap a good harvest in thespring. It was interesting to watch the effect of this triflingamount of moisture. Twelve hours afterwards the groundappeared as dry as ever; yet after an interval of ten days,all the hills were faintly tinged with green patches; thegrass being sparingly scattered in hair-like fibres a fullinch in length. Before this shower every part of the surfacewas bare as on a high road.

In the evening, Captain Fitz Roy and myself were diningwith Mr. Edwards, an English resident well known for hishospitality by all who have visited Coquimbo, when a sharpearthquake happened. I heard the forecoming rumble, butfrom the screams of the ladies, the running of the servants,and the rush of several of the gentlemen to the doorway, Icould not distinguish the motion. Some of the women afterwardswere crying with terror, and one gentleman said heshould not be able to sleep all night, or if he did, it wouldonly be to dream of falling houses. The father of this personhad lately lost all his property at Talcahuano, and hehimself had only just escaped a falling roof at Valparaiso,in 1822. He mentioned a curious coincidence which thenhappened: he was playing at cards, when a German, one ofthe party, got up, and said he would never sit in a room inthese countries with the door shut, as owing to his havingdone so, he had nearly lost his life at Copiapo. Accordinglyhe opened the door; and no sooner had he done this, than hecried out, "Here it comes again!" and the famous shockcommenced. The whole party escaped. The danger in anearthquake is not from the time lost in opening the door, butfrom the chance of its becoming jammed by the movementof the walls.

It is impossible to be much surprised at the fear whichnatives and old residents, though some of them known tobe men of great command of mind, so generally experienceduring earthquakes. I think, however, this excess of panicmay be partly attributed to a want of habit in governingtheir fear, as it is not a feeling they are ashamed of. Indeed,the natives do not like to see a person indifferent. Iheard of two Englishmen who, sleeping in the open air duringa smart shock, knowing that there was no danger, did notrise. The natives cried out indignantly, "Look at thoseheretics, they do not even get out of their beds!"

I spent some days in examining the step-formed terracesof shingle, first noticed by Captain B. Hall, and believedby Mr. Lyell to have been formed by the sea, during thegradual rising of the land. This certainly is the trueexplanation, for I found numerous shells of existing specieson these terraces. Five narrow, gently sloping, fringe-liketerraces rise one behind the other, and where best developedare formed of shingle: they front the bay, and sweep up bothsides of the valley. At Guasco, north of Coquimbo, thephenomenon is displayed on a much grander scale, so as tostrike with surprise even some of the inhabitants. The terracesare there much broader, and may be called plains, insome parts there are six of them, but generally only five;they run up the valley for thirty-seven miles from the coast.These step-formed terraces or fringes closely resemble thosein the valley of S. Cruz, and, except in being on a smallerscale, those great ones along the whole coast-line of Patagonia.They have undoubtedly been formed by the denudingpower of the sea, during long periods of rest in thegradual elevation of the continent.

Shells of many existing species not only lie on the surfaceof the terraces at Coquimbo (to a height of 250 feet),but are embedded in a friable calcareous rock, which in someplaces is as much as between twenty and thirty feet inthickness, but is of little extent. These modern beds rest on anancient tertiary formation containing shells, apparently allextinct. Although I examined so many hundred miles ofcoast on the Pacific, as well as Atlantic side of the continent,I found no regular strata containing sea-shells ofrecent species, excepting at this place, and at a few pointsnorthward on the road to Guasco. This fact appears to mehighly remarkable; for the explanation generally given bygeologists, of the absence in any district of stratifiedfossiliferous deposits of a given period, namely, that thesurface then existed as dry land, is not here applicable; for weknow from the shells strewed on the surface and embeddedin loose sand or mould that the land for thousands of milesalong both coasts has lately been submerged. The explanation,no doubt, must be sought in the fact, that the wholesouthern part of the continent has been for a long timeslowly rising; and therefore that all matter deposited alongshore in shallow water, must have been soon brought upand slowly exposed to the wearing action of the sea-beach;and it is only in comparatively shallow water that the greaternumber of marine organic beings can flourish, and in suchwater it is obviously impossible that strata of any greatthickness can accumulate. To show the vast power of thewearing action of sea-beaches, we need only appeal to thegreat cliffs along the present coast of Patagonia, and to theescarpments or ancient sea-cliffs at different levels, oneabove another, on that same line of coast.

The old underlying tertiary formation at Coquimbo,appears to be of about the same age with several depositson the coast of Chile (of which that of Navedad is theprincipal one), and with the great formation of Patagonia.Both at Navedad and in Patagonia there is evidence, thatsince the shells (a list of which has been seen by ProfessorE. Forbes) there entombed were living, there has been asubsidence of several hundred feet, as well as an ensuingelevation. It may naturally be asked, how it comes that,although no extensive fossiliferous deposits of the recentperiod, nor of any period intermediate between it and theancient tertiary epoch, have been preserved on either side ofthe continent, yet that at this ancient tertiary epoch,sedimentary matter containing fossil remains, should have beendeposited and preserved at different points in north andsouth lines, over a space of 1100 miles on the shores of thePacific, and of at least 1350 miles on the shores of theAtlantic, and in an east and west line of 700 miles across thewidest part of the continent? I believe the explanation isnot difficult, and that it is perhaps applicable to nearlyanalogous facts observed in other quarters of the world.Considering the enormous power of denudation which the seapossesses, as shown by numberless facts, it is not probablethat a sedimentary deposit, when being upraised, could passthrough the ordeal of the beach, so as to be preserved insufficient masses to last to a distant period, without it wereoriginally of wide extent and of considerable thickness: nowit is impossible on a moderately shallow bottom, whichalone is favourable to most living creatures, that a thickand widely extended covering of sediment could be spreadout, without the bottom sank down to receive the successivelayers. This seems to have actually taken place at aboutthe same period in southern Patagonia and Chile, thoughthese places are a thousand miles apart. Hence, if prolongedmovements of approximately contemporaneous subsidenceare generally widely extensive, as I am stronglyinclined to believe from my examination of the Coral Reefsof the great oceans -- or if, confining our view to SouthAmerica, the subsiding movements have been coextensivewith those of elevation, by which, within the same periodof existing shells, the shores of Peru, Chile, Tierra delFuego, Patagonia, and La Plata have been upraised -- thenwe can see that at the same time, at far distant points,circumstances would have been favourable to the formation offossiliferous deposits of wide extent and of considerablethickness; and such deposits, consequently, would have agood chance of resisting the wear and tear of successivebeach-lines, and of lasting to a future epoch.

May 21st. -- I set out in company with Don Jose Edwardsto the silver-mine of Arqueros, and thence up the valley ofCoquimbo. Passing through a mountainous country, wereached by nightfall the mines belonging to Mr. Edwards.I enjoyed my night's rest here from a reason which will notbe fully appreciated in England, namely, the absence offleas! The rooms in Coquimbo swarm with them; but theywill not live here at the height of only three or fourthousand feet: it can scarcely be the trifling diminutionof temperature, but some other cause which destroys thesetroublesome insects at this place. The mines are now in abad state, though they formerly yielded about 2000 poundsin weight of silver a year. It has been said that "a personwith a copper-mine will gain; with silver he may gain; butwith gold he is sure to lose." This is not true: all the largeChilian fortunes have been made by mines of the moreprecious metals. A short time since an English physicianreturned to England from Copiapo, taking with him theprofits of one share of a silver-mine, which amounted toabout 24,000 pounds sterling. No doubt a copper-mine withcare is a sure game, whereas the other is gambling, or rathertaking a ticket in a lottery. The owners lose great quantitiesof rich ores; for no precautions can prevent robberies.I heard of a gentleman laying a bet with another, that oneof his men should rob him before his face. The ore whenbrought out of the mine is broken into pieces, and the uselessstone thrown on one side. A couple of the miners whowere thus employed, pitched, as if by accident, two fragmentsaway at the same moment, and then cried out for a joke"Let us see which rolls furthest." The owner, who wasstanding by, bet a cigar with his friend on the race. Theminer by this means watched the very point amongst therubbish where the stone lay. In the evening he picked itup and carried it to his master, showing him a rich mass ofsilver-ore, and saying, "This was the stone on which youwon a cigar by its rolling so far."

May 23rd. -- We descended into the fertile valley of Coquimbo,and followed it till we reached an Hacienda belongingto a relation of Don Jose, where we stayed the next day.I then rode one day's journey further, to see what weredeclared to be some petrified shells and beans, which latterturned out to be small quartz pebbles. We passed throughseveral small villages; and the valley was beautifullycultivated, and the whole scenery very grand. We were herenear the main Cordillera, and the surrounding hills werelofty. In all parts of northern Chile, fruit trees producemuch more abundantly at a considerable height near theAndes than in the lower country. The figs and grapes ofthis district are famous for their excellence, and arecultivated to a great extent. This valley is, perhaps, the mostproductive one north of Quillota. I believe it contains,including Coquimbo, 25,000 inhabitants. The next day Ireturned to the Hacienda, and thence, together with DonJose, to Coquimbo.

June 2nd. -- We set out for the valley of Guasco, followingthe coast-road, which was considered rather less desert thanthe other. Our first day's ride was to a solitary house, calledYerba Buena, where there was pasture for our horses. Theshower mentioned as having fallen, a fortnight ago, onlyreached about half-way to Guasco; we had, therefore, in thefirst part of our journey a most faint tinge of green, whichsoon faded quite away. Even where brightest, it was scarcelysufficient to remind one of the fresh turf and buddingflowers of the spring of other countries. While travellingthrough these deserts one feels like a prisoner shut up ina gloomy court, who longs to see something green and tosmell a moist atmosphere.

June 3rd. -- Yerba Buena to Carizal. During the first partof the day we crossed a mountainous rocky desert, and afterwardsa long deep sandy plain, strewed with broken seashells.There was very little water, and that little saline:the whole country, from the coast to the Cordillera, is anuninhabited desert. I saw traces only of one living animal inabundance, namely, the shells of a Bulimus, which werecollected together in extraordinary numbers on the driestspots. In the spring one humble little plant sends out a fewleaves, and on these the snails feed. As they are seen onlyvery early in the morning, when the ground is slightly dampwith dew, the Guascos believe that they are bred from it. Ihave observed in other places that extremely dry and steriledistricts, where the soil is calcareous, are extraordinarilyfavourable to land-shells. At Carizal there were a few cottages,some brackish water, and a trace of cultivation: but itwas with difficulty that we purchased a little corn and strawfor our horses.

4th. -- Carizal to Sauce. We continued to ride over desertplains, tenanted by large herds of guanaco. We crossed alsothe valley of Chaneral; which, although the most fertile onebetween Guasco and Coquimbo, is very narrow, and producesso little pasture, that we could not purchase any for ourhorses. At Sauce we found a very civil old gentleman,superintendent of a copper-smelting furnace. As an especialfavour, he allowed me to purchase at a high price an armfulof dirty straw, which was all the poor horses had for supperafter their long day's journey. Few smelting-furnaces arenow at work in any part of Chile; it is found more profitable,on account of the extreme scarcity of firewood, and fromthe Chilian method of reduction being so unskilful, to ship theore for Swansea. The next day we crossed some mountainsto Freyrina, in the valley of Guasco. During each day's ridefurther northward, the vegetation became more and morescanty; even the great chandelier-like cactus was herereplaced by a different and much smaller species. During thewinter months, both in northern Chile and in Peru, a uniformbank of clouds hangs, at no great height, over the Pacific.From the mountains we had a very striking view of thiswhite and brilliant aerial-field, which sent arms up thevalleys, leaving islands and promontories in the same manner, asthe sea does in the Chonos archipelago and in Tierra del Fuego.

We stayed two days at Freyrina. In the valley of Guascothere are four small towns. At the mouth there is the port, aspot entirely desert, and without any water in the immediateneighbourhood. Five leagues higher up stands Freyrina, along straggling village, with decent whitewashed houses.Again, ten leagues further up Ballenar is situated, and abovethis Guasco Alto, a horticultural village, famous for its driedfruit. On a clear day the view up the valley is very fine; thestraight opening terminates in the far-distant snowy Cordillera;on each side an infinity of crossing-lines are blendedtogether in a beautiful haze. The foreground is singularfrom the number of parallel and step-formed terraces; andthe included strip of green valley, with its willow-bushes, iscontrasted on both hands with the naked hills. That thesurrounding country was most barren will be readily believed,when it is known that a shower of rain had not fallen duringthe last thirteen months. The inhabitants heard with thegreatest envy of the rain at Coquimbo; from the appearanceof the sky they had hopes of equally good fortune, which, afortnight afterwards, were realized. I was at Copiapo at thetime; and there the people, with equal envy, talked of theabundant rain at Guasco. After two or three very dry years,perhaps with not more than one shower during the wholetime, a rainy year generally follows; and this does more harmthan even the drought. The rivers swell, and cover withgravel and sand the narrow strips of ground, which alone arefit for cultivation. The floods also injure the irrigatingditches. Great devastation had thus been caused three yearsago.

June 8th. -- We rode on to Ballenar, which takes its namefrom Ballenagh in Ireland, the birthplace of the family ofO'Higgins, who, under the Spanish government, were presidentsand generals in Chile. As the rocky mountains on eachhand were concealed by clouds, the terrace-like plains gaveto the valley an appearance like that of Santa Cruz inPatagonia. After spending one day at Ballenar I set out, on the10th, for the upper part of the valley of Copiapo. We rodeall day over an uninteresting country. I am tired of repeatingthe epithets barren and sterile. These words, however,as commonly used, are comparative; I have always appliedthem to the plains of Patagonia, which can boast of spinybushes and some tufts of grass; and this is absolute fertility,as compared with northern Chile. Here again, there are notmany spaces of two hundred yards square, where some littlebush, cactus or lichen, may not be discovered by carefulexamination; and in the soil seeds lie dormant ready tospring up during the first rainy winter. In Peru real desertsoccur over wide tracts of country. In the evening wearrived at a valley, in which the bed of the streamlet wasdamp: following it up, we came to tolerably good water.During the night, the stream, from not being evaporatedand absorbed so quickly, flows a league lower down thanduring the day. Sticks were plentiful for firewood, so thatit was a good place to bivouac for us; but for the poor animalsthere was not a mouthful to eat.

June 11th. -- We rode without stopping for twelve hourstill we reached an old smelting-furnace, where there waswater and firewood; but our horses again had nothing to eat,being shut up in an old courtyard. The line of road washilly, and the distant views interesting, from the variedcolours of the bare mountains. It was almost a pity to seethe sun shining constantly over so useless a country; suchsplendid weather ought to have brightened fields and prettygardens. The next day we reached the valley of Copiapo.I was heartily glad of it; for the whole journey was a continuedsource of anxiety; it was most disagreeable to hear,whilst eating our own suppers, our horses gnawing the poststo which they were tied, and to have no means of relievingtheir hunger. To all appearance, however, the animalswere quite fresh; and no one could have told that they hadeaten nothing for the last fifty-five hours.

I had a letter of introduction to Mr. Bingley, who receivedme very kindly at the Hacienda of Potrero Seco. Thisestate is between twenty and thirty miles long, but very narrow,being generally only two fields wide, one on each sidethe river. In some parts the estate is of no width, that isto say, the land cannot be irrigated, and therefore isvalueless, like the surrounding rocky desert. The small quantityof cultivated land in the whole line of valley, does not somuch depend on inequalities of level, and consequent unfitnessfor irrigation, as on the small supply of water. Theriver this year was remarkably full: here, high up the valley,it reached to the horse's belly, and was about fifteen yardswide, and rapid; lower down it becomes smaller and smaller,and is generally quite lost, as happened during one periodof thirty years, so that not a drop entered the sea. Theinhabitants watch a storm over the Cordillera with greatinterest; as one good fall of snow provides them with waterfor the ensuing year. This is of infinitely more consequencethan rain in the lower country. Rain, as often as it falls,which is about once in every two or three years, is a greatadvantage, because the cattle and mules can for some timeafterwards find a little pasture in the mountains. But withoutsnow on the Andes, desolation extends throughout thevalley. It is on record that three times nearly all theinhabitants have been obliged to emigrate to the south. Thisyear there was plenty of water, and every man irrigated hisground as much as he chose; but it has frequently beennecessary to post soldiers at the sluices, to see that eachestate took only its proper allowance during so many hoursin the week. The valley is said to contain 12,000 souls, butits produce is sufficient only for three months in the year;the rest of the supply being drawn from Valparaiso and thesouth. Before the discovery of the famous silver-mines ofChanuncillo, Copiapo was in a rapid state of decay; but nowit is in a very thriving condition; and the town, which wascompletely overthrown by an earthquake, has been rebuilt.

The valley of Copiapo, forming a mere ribbon of greenin a desert, runs in a very southerly direction; so that it isof considerable length to its source in the Cordillera. Thevalleys of Guasco and Copiapo may both be considered aslong narrow islands, separated from the rest of Chile bydeserts of rock instead of by salt water. Northward ofthese, there is one other very miserable valley, called Paposo,which contains about two hundred souls; and then thereextends the real desert of Atacama -- a barrier far worsethan the most turbulent ocean. After staying a few days atPotrero Seco, I proceeded up the valley to the house of DonBenito Cruz, to whom I had a letter of introduction. I foundhim most hospitable; indeed it is impossible to bear toostrong testimony to the kindness with which travellers arereceived in almost every part of South America. The nextday I hired some mules to take me by the ravine of Jolquerainto the central Cordillera. On the second night theweather seemed to foretell a storm of snow or rain, and whilstlying in our beds we felt a trifling shock of an earthquake.

The connection between earthquakes and the weather hasbeen often disputed: it appears to me to be a point of greatinterest, which is little understood. Humboldt has remarkedin one part of the Personal Narrative,

Finding little of interest in this part of the ravine, weretraced our steps to the house of Don Benito, where I stayedtwo days collecting fossil shells and wood. Great prostratesilicified trunks of trees, embedded in a conglomerate, wereextraordinarily numerous. I measured one, which was fifteenfeet in circumference: how surprising it is that everyatom of the woody matter in this great cylinder should havebeen removed and replaced by silex so perfectly, that eachvessel and pore is preserved! These trees flourished at aboutthe period of our lower chalk; they all belonged to the fir-tribe. It was amusing to hear the inhabitants discussing thenature of the fossil shells which I collected, almost in thesame terms as were used a century ago in Europe, -- namely,whether or not they had been thus "born by nature." Mygeological examination of the country generally created agood deal of surprise amongst the Chilenos: it was longbefore they could be convinced that I was not hunting formines. This was sometimes troublesome: I found the mostready way of explaining my employment, was to ask themhow it was that they themselves were not curious concerningearthquakes and volcanos? -- why some springs were hot andothers cold? -- why there were mountains in Chile, and nota hill in La Plata? These bare questions at once satisfiedand silenced the greater number; some, however (like a fewin England who are a century behindhand), thought that allsuch inquiries were useless and impious; and that it wasquite sufficient that God had thus made the mountains.

An order had recently been issued that all stray dogsshould be killed, and we saw many lying dead on the road. Agreat number had lately gone mad, and several men had beenbitten and had died in consequence. On several occasionshydrophobia has prevailed in this valley. It is remarkablethus to find so strange and dreadful a disease, appearingtime after time in the same isolated spot. It has beenremarked that certain villages in England are in like mannermuch more subject to this visitation than others. Dr. Unanuestates that hydrophobia was first known in SouthAmerica in 1803: this statement is corroborated by Azaraand Ulloa having never heard of it in their time. Dr. Unanuesays that it broke out in Central America, and slowlytravelled southward. It reached Arequipa in 1807; and it issaid that some men there, who had not been bitten, wereaffected, as were some negroes, who had eaten a bullockwhich had died of hydrophobia. At Ica forty-two people thusmiserably perished. The disease came on between twelveand ninety days after the bite; and in those cases where itdid come on, death ensued invariably within five days. After1808, a long interval ensued without any cases. On inquiry,I did not hear of hydrophobia in Van Diemen's Land, or inAustralia; and Burchell says, that during the five years hewas at the Cape of Good Hope, he never heard of an instanceof it. Webster asserts that at the Azores hydrophobia hasnever occurred; and the same assertion has been made withrespect to Mauritius and St. Helena.

At night, a stranger arrived at the house of Don Benito,and asked permission to sleep there. He said he had beenwandering about the mountains for seventeen days, havinglost his way. He started from Guasco, and being accustomedto travelling in the Cordillera, did not expect any difficultyin following the track to Copiapo; but he soon becameinvolved in a labyrinth of mountains, whence he could notescape. Some of his mules had fallen over precipices, and hehad been in great distress. His chief difficulty arose fromnot knowing where to find water in the lower country, so thathe was obliged to keep bordering the central ranges.

We returned down the valley, and on the 22nd reachedthe town of Copiapo. The lower part of the valley is broad,forming a fine plain like that of Quillota. The town coversa considerable space of ground, each house possessing a garden:but it is an uncomfortable place, and the dwellings arepoorly furnished. Every one seems bent on the one objectof making money, and then migrating as quickly as possible.All the inhabitants are more or less directly concerned withmines; and mines and ores are the sole subjects of conversation.Necessaries of all sorts are extremely dear; as thedistance from the town to the port is eighteen leagues, andthe land carriage very expensive. A fowl costs five or sixshillings; meat is nearly as dear as in England; firewood,or rather sticks, are brought on donkeys from a distance oftwo and three days' journey within the Cordillera; and pasturagefor animals is a shilling a day: all this for SouthAmerica is wonderfully exorbitant.

June 26th. -- I hired a guide and eight mules to take meinto the Cordillera by a different line from my last excursion.As the country was utterly desert, we took a cargoand a half of barley mixed with chopped straw. About twoleagues above the town a broad valley called the "Despoblado,"or uninhabited, branches off from that one by whichwe had arrived. Although a valley of the grandest dimensions,and leading to a pass across the Cordillera, yet it iscompletely dry, excepting perhaps for a few days duringsome very rainy winter. The sides of the crumbling mountainswere furrowed by scarcely any ravines; and the bottomof the main valley, filled with shingle, was smooth and nearlylevel. No considerable torrent could ever have flowed downthis bed of shingle; for if it had, a great cliff-boundedchannel, as in all the southern valleys, would assuredly havebeen formed. I feel little doubt that this valley, as well asthose mentioned by travellers in Peru, were left in the state wenow see them by the waves of the sea, as the land slowly rose. Iobserved in one place, where the Despoblado was joined by aravine (which in almost any other chain would have beencalled a grand valley), that its bed, though composed merelyof sand and gravel, was higher than that of its tributary.A mere rivulet of water, in the course of an hour, would havecut a channel for itself; but it was evident that ages hadpassed away, and no such rivulet had drained this greattributary. It was curious to behold the machinery, if such aterm may be used, for the drainage, all, with the last triflingexception, perfect, yet without any signs of action. Every onemust have remarked how mud-banks, left by the retiring tide,imitate in miniature a country with hill and dale; and herewe have the original model in rock, formed as the continentrose during the secular retirement of the ocean, instead ofduring the ebbing and flowing of the tides. If a shower ofrain falls on the mud-bank, when left dry, it deepens thealready-formed shallow lines of excavation; and so it is withthe rain of successive centuries on the bank of rock and soil,which we call a continent.

We rode on after it was dark, till we reached a side ravinewith a small well, called "Agua amarga." The waterdeserved its name, for besides being saline it was mostoffensively putrid and bitter; so that we could not forceourselves to drink either tea or mate. I suppose the distancefrom the river of Copiapo to this spot was at least twenty-fiveor thirty English miles; in the whole space there was not asingle drop of water, the country deserving the name of desertin the strictest sense. Yet about half way we passed some oldIndian ruins near Punta Gorda: I noticed also in front ofsome of the valleys, which branch off from the Despoblado,two piles of stones placed a little way apart, and directed soas to point up the mouths of these small valleys. My companionsknew nothing about them, and only answered myqueries by their imperturbable "quien sabe?"

I observed Indian ruins in several parts of the Cordillera:the most perfect which I saw, were the Ruinas de Tambillos,in the Uspallata Pass. Small square rooms were there huddledtogether in separate groups: some of the doorways wereyet standing; they were formed by a cross slab of stone onlyabout three feet high. Ulloa has remarked on the lowness ofthe doors in the ancient Peruvian dwellings. These houses,when perfect, must have been capable of containing aconsiderable number of persons. Tradition says, that they wereused as halting-places for the Incas, when they crossed themountains. Traces of Indian habitations have been discoveredin many other parts, where it does not appear probablethat they were used as mere resting-places, but yet wherethe land is as utterly unfit for any kind of cultivation, as itis near the Tambillos or at the Incas Bridge, or in the PortilloPass, at all which places I saw ruins. In the ravine ofJajuel, near Aconcagua, where there is no pass, I heard ofremains of houses situated at a great height, where it isextremely cold and sterile. At first I imagined that thesebuildings had been places of refuge, built by the Indians onthe first arrival of the Spaniards; but I have since beeninclined to speculate on the probability of a small change ofclimate.

In this northern part of Chile, within the Cordillera, oldIndian houses are said to be especially numerous: by diggingamongst the ruins, bits of woollen articles, instruments ofprecious metals, and heads of Indian corn, are not unfrequentlydiscovered: an arrow-head made of agate, and ofprecisely the same form with those now used in Tierra delFuego, was given me. I am aware that the Peruvian Indiansnow frequently inhabit most lofty and bleak situations; butat Copiapo I was assured by men who had spent their lives intravelling through the Andes, that there were very many(muchisimas) buildings at heights so great as almost to borderupon the perpetual snow, and in parts where there existno passes, and where the land produces absolutely nothing,and what is still more extraordinary, where there is no water.Nevertheless it is the opinion of the people of the country(although they are much puzzled by the circumstance), that,from the appearance of the houses, the Indians must haveused them as places of residence. In this valley, at PuntaGorda, the remains consisted of seven or eight square littlerooms, which were of a similar form with those at Tambillos,but built chiefly of mud, which the present inhabitants cannot,either here or, according to Ulloa, in Peru, imitate indurability. They were situated in the most conspicuous anddefenceless position, at the bottom of the flat broad valley.There was no water nearer than three or four leagues, andthat only in very small quantity, and bad: the soil wasabsolutely sterile; I looked in vain even for a lichen adheringto the rocks. At the present day, with the advantage of beastsof burden, a mine, unless it were very rich, could scarcelybe worked here with profit. Yet the Indians formerly choseit as a place of residence! If at the present time two orthree showers of rain were to fall annually, instead of one,as now is the case during as many years, a small rill of waterwould probably be formed in this great valley; and then, byirrigation (which was formerly so well understood by theIndians), the soil would easily be rendered sufficientlyproductive to support a few families.

I have convincing proofs that this part of the continent ofSouth America has been elevated near the coast at least from400 to 500, and in some parts from 1000 to 1300 feet, sincethe epoch of existing shells; and further inland the risepossibly may have been greater. As the peculiarly arid characterof the climate is evidently a consequence of the height of theCordillera, we may feel almost sure that before the laterelevations, the atmosphere could not have been so completelydrained of its moisture as it now is; and as the rise has beengradual, so would have been the change in climate. On thisnotion of a change of climate since the buildings wereinhabited, the ruins must be of extreme antiquity, but I donot think their preservation under the Chilian climate anygreat difficulty. We must also admit on this notion (andthis perhaps is a greater difficulty) that man has inhabitedSouth America for an immensely long period, inasmuch asany change of climate effected by the elevation of the landmust have been extremely gradual. At Valparaiso, withinthe last 220 years, the rise has been somewhat less than 19feet: at Lima a sea-beach has certainly been upheaved from80 to 90 feet, within the Indo-human period: but such smallelevations could have had little power in deflecting themoisture-bringing atmospheric currents. Dr. Lund, however,found human skeletons in the caves of Brazil, the appearanceof which induced him to believe that the Indian race hasexisted during a vast lapse of time in South America.

When at Lima, I conversed on these subjects

June 27th. -- We set out early in the morning, and by middayreached the ravine of Paypote, where there is a tiny rillof water, with a little vegetation, and even a few algarrobatrees, a kind of mimosa. From having fire-wood, a smelting-furnace had formerly been built here: we found a solitaryman in charge of it, whose sole employment was huntingguanacos. At night it froze sharply; but having plenty ofwood for our fire, we kept ourselves warm.

28th. -- We continued gradually ascending, and the valleynow changed into a ravine. During the day we saw severalguanacos, and the track of the closely-allied species, theVicuna: this latter animal is pre-eminently alpine in itshabits; it seldom descends much below the limit of perpetualsnow, and therefore haunts even a more lofty and sterilesituation than the guanaco. The only other animal which wesaw in any number was a small fox: I suppose this animalpreys on the mice and other small rodents, which, as long asthere is the least vegetation, subsist in considerable numbersin very desert places. In Patagonia, even on the borders ofthe salinas, where a drop of fresh water can never be found,excepting dew, these little animals swarm. Next to lizards,mice appear to be able to support existence on the smallestand driest portions of the earth -- even on islets in the midstof great oceans.

The scene on all sides showed desolation, brightened andmade palpable by a clear, unclouded sky. For a time suchscenery is sublime, but this feeling cannot last, and then itbecomes uninteresting. We bivouacked at the foot of the"primera linea," or the first line of the partition of waters.The streams, however, on the east side do not flow to theAtlantic, but into an elevated district, in the middle of whichthere is a large saline, or salt lake; thus forming a littleCaspian Sea at the height, perhaps, of ten thousand feet. Wherewe slept, there were some considerable patches of snow, butthey do not remain throughout the year. The winds in theselofty regions obey very regular laws every day a freshbreeze blows up the valley, and at night, an hour or two aftersunset, the air from the cold regions above descends asthrough a funnel. This night it blew a gale of wind, and thetemperature must have been considerably below the freezing-point, for water in a vessel soon became a block of ice. Noclothes seemed to oppose any obstacle to the air; I sufferedvery much from the cold, so that I could not sleep, and inthe morning rose with my body quite dull and benumbed.

In the Cordillera further southward, people lose their livesfrom snowstorms; here, it sometimes happens from anothercause. My guide, when a boy of fourteen years old, waspassing the Cordillera with a party in the month of May;and while in the central parts, a furious gale of wind arose,so that the men could hardly cling on their mules, and stoneswere flying along the ground. The day was cloudless, andnot a speck of snow fell, but the temperature was low. It isprobable that the thermometer could not have stood verymany degrees below the freezing-point, but the effect ontheir bodies, ill protected by clothing, must have been inproportion to the rapidity of the current of cold air. The galelasted for more than a day; the men began to lose theirstrength, and the mules would not move onwards. My guide'sbrother tried to return, but he perished, and his body wasfound two years afterwards, Lying by the side of his mulenear the road, with the bridle still in his hand. Two othermen in the party lost their fingers and toes; and out of twohundred mules and thirty cows, only fourteen mules escapedalive. Many years ago the whole of a large party are supposedto have perished from a similar cause, but their bodiesto this day have never been discovered. The union of acloudless sky, low temperature, and a furious gale of wind,must be, I should think, in all parts of the world an unusualoccurrence.

June 29th -- We gladly travelled down the valley to ourformer night's lodging, and thence to near the Agua amarga.On July 1st we reached the valley of Copiapo. The smell ofthe fresh clover was quite delightful, after the scentless airof the dry, sterile Despoblado. Whilst staying in the town Iheard an account from several of the inhabitants, of a hillin the neighbourhood which they called "El Bramador," -- theroarer or bellower. I did not at the time pay sufficientattention to the account; but, as far as I understood, the hillwas covered by sand, and the noise was produced only whenpeople, by ascending it, put the sand in motion. The samecircumstances are described in detail on the authority ofSeetzen and Ehrenberg,

Three days afterwards I heard of the Beagle's arrival atthe Port, distant eighteen leagues from the town. There isvery little land cultivated down the valley; its wide expansesupports a wretched wiry grass, which even the donkeys canhardly eat. This poorness of the vegetation is owing to thequantity of saline matter with which the soil is impregnated.The Port consists of an assemblage of miserable little hovels,situated at the foot of a sterile plain. At present, as theriver contains water enough to reach the sea, the inhabitantsenjoy the advantage of having fresh water within a mile anda half. On the beach there were large piles of merchandise,and the little place had an air of activity. In the eveningI gave my adios, with a hearty good-will, to my companionMariano Gonzales, with whom I had ridden so many leaguesin Chile. The next morning the Beagle sailed for Iquique.

July 12th. -- We anchored in the port of Iquique, in lat.20 degs. 12', on the coast of Peru. The town contains about athousand inhabitants, and stands on a little plain of sand atthe foot of a great wall of rock, 2000 feet in height, hereforming the coast. The whole is utterly desert. A lightshower of rain falls only once in very many years; and theravines consequently are filled with detritus, and themountain-sides covered by piles of fine white sand, even to aheight of a thousand feet. During this season of the year aheavy bank of clouds, stretched over the ocean, seldom risesabove the wall of rocks on the coast. The aspect of the placewas most gloomy; the little port, with its few vessels, andsmall group of wretched houses, seemed overwhelmed and out ofall proportion with the rest of the scene.

The inhabitants live like persons on board a ship: everynecessary comes from a distance: water is brought in boatsfrom Pisagua, about forty miles northward, and is sold atthe rate of nine reals (4s. 6d.) an eighteen-gallon cask: Ibought a wine-bottle full for threepence. In like mannerfirewood, and of course every article of food, is imported.Very few animals can be maintained in such a place: on theensuing morning I hired with difficulty, at the price of fourpounds sterling, two mules and a guide to take me to thenitrate of soda works. These are at present the support ofIquique. This salt was first exported in 1830: in one year anamount in value of one hundred thousand pounds sterling,was sent to France and England. It is principally used as amanure and in the manufacture of nitric acid: owing to itsdeliquescent property it will not serve for gunpowder. Formerlythere were two exceedingly rich silver-mines in thisneighbourhood, but their produce is now very small.

Our arrival in the offing caused some little apprehension.Peru was in a state of anarchy; and each party havingdemanded a contribution, the poor town of Iquique was intribulation, thinking the evil hour was come. The peoplehad also their domestic troubles; a short time before, three

French carpenters had broken open, during the same night,the two churches, and stolen all the plate: one of the robbers,however, subsequently confessed, and the plate was recovered.The convicts were sent to Arequipa, which though the capitalof this province, is two hundred leagues distant, the governmentthere thought it a pity to punish such useful workmen,who could make all sorts of furniture; and accordinglyliberated them. Things being in this state, the churches wereagain broken open, but this time the plate was not recovered.The inhabitants became dreadfully enraged, and declaringthat none but heretics would thus "eat God Almighty," proceededto torture some Englishmen, with the intention ofafterwards shooting them. At last the authorities interfered,and peace was established.

13th. -- In the morning I started for the saltpetre-works,a distance of fourteen leagues. Having ascended the steepcoast-mountains by a zigzag sandy track, we soon came inview of the mines of Guantajaya and St. Rosa. These twosmall villages are placed at the very mouths of the mines;and being perched up on hills, they had a still more unnaturaland desolate appearance than the town of Iquique. We didnot reach the saltpetre-works till after sunset, having riddenall day across an undulating country, a complete and utterdesert. The road was strewed with the bones and dried skinsof many beasts of burden which had perished on it fromfatigue. Excepting the Vultur aura, which preys on thecarcasses, I saw neither bird, quadruped, reptile, nor insect.On the coast-mountains, at the height of about 2000 feetwhere during this season the clouds generally hang, a veryfew cacti were growing in the clefts of rock; and the loosesand was strewed over with a lichen, which lies on the surfacequite unattached. This plant belongs to the genusCladonia, and somewhat resembles the reindeer lichen. Insome parts it was in sufficient quantity to tinge the sand,as seen from a distance, of a pale yellowish colour. Furtherinland, during the whole ride of fourteen leagues, I saw onlyone other vegetable production, and that was a most minuteyellow lichen, growing on the bones of the dead mules. Thiswas the first true desert which I had seen: the effect on mewas not impressive; but I believe this was owing to myhaving become gradually accustomed to such scenes, as Irode northward from Valparaiso, through Coquimbo, to Copiapo.The appearance of the country was remarkable, frombeing covered by a thick crust of common salt, and of astratified saliferous alluvium, which seems to have beendeposited as the land slowly rose above the level of the sea.The salt is white, very hard, and compact: it occurs in waterworn nodules projecting from the agglutinated sand, and isassociated with much gypsum. The appearance of this superficialmass very closely resembled that of a country aftersnow, before the last dirty patches are thawed. The existenceof this crust of a soluble substance over the whole face ofthe country, shows how extraordinarily dry the climate musthave been for a long period.

At night I slept at the house of the owner of one of thesaltpetre mines. The country is here as unproductive asnear the coast; but water, having rather a bitter and brackishtaste, can be procured by digging wells. The well at thishouse was thirty-six yards deep: as scarcely any rain falls,it is evident the water is not thus derived; indeed if it were,it could not fail to be as salt as brine, for the wholesurrounding country is incrusted with various saline substances.We must therefore conclude that it percolates under groundfrom the Cordillera, though distant many leagues. In thatdirection there are a few small villages, where the inhabitants,having more water, are enabled to irrigate a little land,and raise hay, on which the mules and asses, employed incarrying the saltpetre, are fed. The nitrate of soda was nowselling at the ship's side at fourteen shillings per hundredpounds: the chief expense is its transport to the sea-coast.The mine consists of a hard stratum, between two and threefeet thick, of the nitrate mingled with a little of the sulphateof soda and a good deal of common salt. It lies close beneaththe surface, and follows for a length of one hundred andfifty miles the margin of a grand basin or plain; this, fromits outline, manifestly must once have been a lake, or moreprobably an inland arm of the sea, as may be inferred fromthe presence of iodic salts in the saline stratum. The surfaceof the plain is 3300 feet above the Pacific.

19th. -- We anchored in the Bay of Callao, the seaport ofLima, the capital of Peru. We stayed here six weeks butfrom the troubled state of public affairs, I saw very little ofthe country. During our whole visit the climate was farfrom being so delightful, as it is generally represented. Adull heavy bank of clouds constantly hung over the land, sothat during the first sixteen days I had only one view of theCordillera behind Lima. These mountains, seen in stages,one above the other, through openings in the clouds, had avery grand appearance. It is almost become a proverb, thatrain never falls in the lower part of Peru. Yet this canhardly be considered correct; for during almost every day ofour visit there was a thick drizzling mist, which was sufficientto make the streets muddy and one's clothes damp: this thepeople are pleased to call Peruvian dew. That much raindoes not fall is very certain, for the houses are covered onlywith flat roofs made of hardened mud; and on the mole shiploadsof wheat were piled up, being thus left for weeks togetherwithout any shelter.

I cannot say I liked the very little I saw of Peru: insummer, however, it is said that the climate is much pleasanter.In all seasons, both inhabitants and foreigners sufferfrom severe attacks of ague. This disease is common on thewhole coast of Peru, but is unknown in the interior. Theattacks of illness which arise from miasma never fail to appearmost mysterious. So difficult is it to judge from theaspect of a country, whether or not it is healthy, that if aperson had been told to choose within the tropics a situationappearing favourable for health, very probably he wouldhave named this coast. The plain round the outskirts ofCallao is sparingly covered with a coarse grass, and in someparts there are a few stagnant, though very small, pools ofwater. The miasma, in all probability, arises from these:for the town of Arica was similarly circumstanced, and itshealthiness was much improved by the drainage of somelittle pools. Miasma is not always produced by a luxuriantvegetation with an ardent climate; for many parts of Brazil,even where there are marshes and a rank vegetation, aremuch more healthy than this sterile coast of Peru. Thedensest forests in a temperate climate, as in Chiloe, do notseem in the slightest degree to affect the healthy conditionof the atmosphere.

The island of St. Jago, at the Cape de Verds, offers anotherstrongly marked instance of a country, which any onewould have expected to find most healthy, being very muchthe contrary. I have described the bare and open plains assupporting, during a few weeks after the rainy season, a thinvegetation, which directly withers away and dries up: at thisperiod the air appears to become quite poisonous; both nativesand foreigners often being affected with violent fevers.On the other hand, the Galapagos Archipelago, in the Pacific,with a similar soil, and periodically subject to the sameprocess of vegetation, is perfectly healthy. Humboldt hasobserved, that, "under the torrid zone, the smallest marshesare the most dangerous, being surrounded, as at Vera Cruzand Carthagena, with an arid and sandy soil, which raisesthe temperature of the ambient air."

No state in South America, since the declaration ofindependence, has suffered more from anarchy than Peru. Atthe time of our visit, there were four chiefs in arms contendingfor supremacy in the government: if one succeededin becoming for a time very powerful, the others coalescedagainst him; but no sooner were they victorious, than theywere again hostile to each other. The other day, at theAnniversary of the Independence, high mass was performed, thePresident partaking of the sacrament: during the _Te Deumlaudamus_, instead of each regiment displaying the Peruvianflag, a black one with death's head was unfurled. Imaginea government under which such a scene could be ordered, onsuch an occasion, to be typical of their determination offighting to death! This state of affairs happened at a timevery unfortunately for me, as I was precluded from takingany excursions much beyond the limits of the town. Thebarren island of St. Lorenzo, which forms the harbour, wasnearly the only place where one could walk securely. Theupper part, which is upwards of 1000 feet in height, duringthis season of the year (winter), comes within the lowerlimit of the clouds; and in consequence, an abundant cryptogamicvegetation, and a few flowers cover the summit. Onthe hills near Lima, at a height but little greater, the groundis carpeted with moss, and beds of beautiful yellow lilies,called Amancaes. This indicates a very much greater degreeof humidity, than at a corresponding height at Iquique.Proceeding northward of Lima, the climate becomes damper,till on the banks of the Guayaquil, nearly under the equator,we find the most luxuriant forests. The change, however,from the sterile coast of Peru to that fertile land is describedas taking place rather abruptly in the latitude of Cape Blanco,two degrees south of Guayaquil.

Callao is a filthy, ill-built, small seaport. The inhabitants,both here and at Lima, present every imaginable shade ofmixture, between European, Negro, and Indian blood. Theyappear a depraved, drunken set of people. The atmosphereis loaded with foul smells, and that peculiar one, which maybe perceived in almost every town within the tropics, washere very strong. The fortress, which withstood Lord Cochrane'slong siege, has an imposing appearance. But thePresident, during our stay, sold the brass guns, and proceededto dismantle parts of it. The reason assigned was,that he had not an officer to whom he could trust so importanta charge. He himself had good reason for thinkingso, as he had obtained the presidentship by rebelling whilein charge of this same fortress. After we left South America,he paid the penalty in the usual manner, by being conquered,taken prisoner, and shot.

Lima stands on a plain in a valley, formed during thegradual retreat of the sea. It is seven miles from Callao,and is elevated 500 feet above it; but from the slope beingvery gradual, the road appears absolutely level; so that whenat Lima it is difficult to believe one has ascended even onehundred feet: Humboldt has remarked on this singularly deceptivecase. Steep barren hills rise like islands from theplain, which is divided, by straight mud-walls, into largegreen fields. In these scarcely a tree grows excepting a fewwillows, and an occasional clump of bananas and of oranges.The city of Lima is now in a wretched state of decay: thestreets are nearly unpaved; and heaps of filth are piled upin all directions, where the black gallinazos, tame as poultry,pick up bits of carrion. The houses have generally an upperstory, built on account of the earthquakes, of plasteredwoodwork but some of the old ones, which are now used by severalfamilies, are immensely large, and would rival in suitesof apartments the most magnificent in any place. Lima, theCity of the Kings, must formerly have been a splendid town.The extraordinary number of churches gives it, even at thepresent day, a peculiar and striking character, especiallywhen viewed from a short distance.

One day I went out with some merchants to hunt in theimmediate vicinity of the city. Our sport was very poor;but I had an opportunity of seeing the ruins of one of theancient Indian villages, with its mound like a natural hill inthe centre. The remains of houses, enclosures, irrigatingstreams, and burial mounds, scattered over this plain, cannotfail to give one a high idea of the condition and number ofthe ancient population. When their earthenware, woollenclothes, utensils of elegant forms cut out of the hardest rocks,tools of copper, ornaments of precious stones, palaces, andhydraulic works, are considered, it is impossible not to respectthe considerable advance made by them in the arts ofcivilization. The burial mounds, called Huacas, are reallystupendous; although in some places they appear to be naturalhills incased and modelled.

There is also another and very different class of ruins,which possesses some interest, namely, those of old Callao,overwhelmed by the great earthquake of 1746, and itsaccompanying wave. The destruction must have been morecomplete even than at Talcahuano. Quantities of shinglealmost conceal the foundations of the walls, and vast massesof brickwork appear to have been whirled about like pebblesby the retiring waves. It has been stated that the land subsidedduring this memorable shock: I could not discover anyproof of this; yet it seems far from improbable, for theform of the coast must certainly have undergone some changesince the foundation of the old town; as no people in theirsenses would willingly have chosen for their building place,the narrow spit of shingle on which the ruins now stand.Since our voyage, M. Tschudi has come to the conclusion,by the comparison of old and modern maps, that the coastboth north and south of Lima has certainly subsided.

On the island of San Lorenzo, there are very satisfactoryproofs of elevation within the recent period; this of courseis not opposed to the belief, of a small sinking of the groundhaving subsequently taken place. The side of this islandfronting the Bay of Callao, is worn into three obscure terraces,the lower one of which is covered by a bed a mile inlength, almost wholly composed of shells of eighteen species,now living in the adjoining sea. The height of this bed iseighty-five feet. Many of the shells are deeply corroded, andhave a much older and more decayed appearance than thoseat the height of 500 or 600 feet on the coast of Chile. Theseshells are associated with much common salt, a little sulphateof lime (both probably left by the evaporation of thespray, as the land slowly rose), together with sulphate ofsoda and muriate of lime. They rest on fragments of theunderlying sandstone, and are covered by a few inches thickof detritus. The shells, higher up on this terrace could betraced scaling off in flakes, and falling into an impalpablepowder; and on an upper terrace, at the height of 170 feet,and likewise at some considerably higher points, I found alayer of saline powder of exactly similar appearance, andlying in the same relative position. I have no doubt that thisupper layer originally existed as a bed of shells, like that onthe eighty-five-feet ledge; but it does not now contain even atrace of organic structure. The powder has been analyzedfor me by Mr. T. Reeks; it consists of sulphates and muriatesboth of lime and soda, with very little carbonate oflime. It is known that common salt and carbonate of limeleft in a mass for some time together, partly decompose eachother; though this does not happen with small quantities insolution. As the half-decomposed shells in the lower partsare associated with much common salt, together with someof the saline substances composing the upper saline layer,and as these shells are corroded and decayed in a remarkablemanner, I strongly suspect that this double decompositionhas here taken place. The resultant salts, however, oughtto be carbonate of soda and muriate of lime, the latter ispresent, but not the carbonate of soda. Hence I am led toimagine that by some unexplained means, the carbonate ofsoda becomes changed into the sulphate. It is obvious thatthe saline layer could not have been preserved in any countryin which abundant rain occasionally fell: on the otherhand, this very circumstance, which at first sight appears sohighly favourable to the long preservation of exposed shells,has probably been the indirect means, through the commonsalt not having been washed away, of their decompositionand early decay.

I was much interested by finding on the terrace, at theheight of eighty-five feet, _embedded_ amidst the shells andmuch sea-drifted rubbish, some bits of cotton thread, plaitedrush, and the head of a stalk of Indian corn: I comparedthese relics with similar ones taken out of the Huacas, or oldPeruvian tombs, and found them identical in appearance.On the mainland in front of San Lorenzo, near Bellavista,there is an extensive and level plain about a hundred feethigh, of which the lower part is formed of alternating layersof sand and impure clay, together with some gravel, and thesurface, to the depth of from three to six feet, of a reddishloam, containing a few scattered sea-shells and numeroussmall fragments of coarse red earthenware, more abundantat certain spots than at others. At first I was inclined tobelieve that this superficial bed, from its wide extent andsmoothness, must have been deposited beneath the sea; butI afterwards found in one spot, that it lay on an artificialfloor of round stones. It seems, therefore, most probablethat at a period when the land stood at a lower level therewas a plain very similar to that now surrounding Callao,which being protected by a shingle beach, is raised but verylittle above the level of the sea. On this plain, with itsunderlying red-clay beds, I imagine that the Indiansmanufactured their earthen vessels; and that, during someviolent earthquake, the sea broke over the beach, and convertedthe plain into a temporary lake, as happened round Callao in1713 and 1746. The water would then have deposited mud,containing fragments of pottery from the kilns, more abundantat some spots than at others, and shells from the sea.This bed, with fossil earthenware, stands at about thesame height with the shells on the lower terrace of SanLorenzo, in which the cotton-thread and other relics wereembedded.

Hence we may safely conclude, that within the Indo-humanperiod there has been an elevation, as before alluded to, ofmore than eighty-five feet; for some little elevation musthave been lost by the coast having subsided since the oldmaps were engraved. At Valparaiso, although in the 220years before our visit, the elevation cannot have exceedednineteen feet, yet subsequently to 1817, there has been a rise,partly insensible and partly by a start during the shock of1822, of ten or eleven feet. The antiquity of the Indo-humanrace here, judging by the eighty-five feet rise of the landsince the relics were embedded, is the more remarkable, as onthe coast of Patagonia, when the land stood about the samenumber of feet lower, the Macrauchenia was a living beast;but as the Patagonian coast is some way distant from theCordillera, the rising there may have been slower than here.At Bahia Blanca, the elevation has been only a few feetsince the numerous gigantic quadrupeds were there entombed;and, according to the generally received opinion,when these extinct animals were living, man did not exist.But the rising of that part of the coast of Patagonia, isperhaps no way connected with the Cordillera, but rather witha line of old volcanic rocks in Banda Oriental, so that itmay have been infinitely slower than on the shores of Peru.All these speculations, however, must be vague; for who willpretend to say that there may not have been several periodsof subsidence, intercalated between the movements of elevation;for we know that along the whole coast of Patagonia,there have certainly been many and long pauses inthe upward action of the elevatory forces.