Chapter XVI
San Carlos, Chiloe--Osorno in eruption--Ride to Castro and Cucao --Impenetrable forests--Valdivia--Apple-trees--Ride to Llanos --Indians--Earthquake--Concepcion--Great earthquake--Effects of wave--Rocks fissured--Appearance of the former towns--Water in the bay black and boiling--Direction of vibration--Stones displaced --Cause of great waves--Permanent elevation of land--Great lake of fluid rock beneath crust of the globe--Connexion of volcanic phenomena--Slow elevation of mountain chain, cause of earthquakes.
CHILOE AND CONCEPCION.
ON JANUARY THE 15TH we sailed from Lowe’s Harbour, and three days afterwards anchored a second time in the bay of S. Carlos in Chiloe. On the night of the 19th the volcano of Osorno was in activity. At midnight the sentry observed something like a large star; from which state the bright spot gradually increased in size till about three o’clock, when a very magnificent spectacle was presented. By the aid of a glass, dark objects, in constant succession, were seen, in the midst of a great red glare of light, to be thrown upwards and to fall down again. The light was sufficient to cast on the water a long bright reflection. By the morning the volcano[1] had resumed its tranquillity.
Large masses of molten matter seem very commonly to be cast out of the igneous vents, in this part of the Cordillera. I was assured, that when the Corcovado is in eruption, great masses projected upwards are seen to burst in the air, and to assume fantastical forms, such as trees and other bodies. One may form an idea of the immense size of these bodies, when it is stated that they have been seen from the high land behind S. Carlos, which is distant no less than ninety-three miles from the Corcovado.
Captain FitzRoy being anxious that some bearings should be taken on the outer coast of Chiloe, it was planned that Mr. King and myself should ride to Castro, and thence across the island to the Capella de Cucao, situated on the west coast. Having hired horses and a guide, we set out on the morning of the 22d. We had not proceeded far, before we were joined by a woman and two boys, who were bent on the same journey. Every one on this road acts on a “hail fellow well met,” fashion; and one may here enjoy the privilege, so rare in South America, of travelling without fire-arms.
At first, the country consists of a succession of hills and valleys. Nearer to Castro it becomes very level, but is still some height above the sea. The road itself is a curious affair: it consists in its whole length, with the exception of very few parts, of great logs of wood, which are either broad and placed longitudinally, or narrow and transversely. In summer the road is not very bad: but in winter, when the wood is rendered slippery from rain, travelling is exceedingly difficult. At that time of the year, the ground on each side becomes a morass, and is often overflowed: hence it is necessary that the longitudinal logs should be fastened down by transverse poles, which are pegged on each side into the earth. These pegs render a fall from a horse dangerous; as the chance of alighting on one of them is not small. It is remarkable, however, how active custom has made the Chilotan horses. In crossing bad parts, where the logs have been displaced, they skipped from one to the other, almost with the quickness and certainty of a dog. On either hand the road is bordered by the lofty forest-trees, with their bases matted together by the canes. When occasionally a long reach of this avenue could be observed, it presented a curious scene of uniformity: the white line of logs, narrowing in perspective, became hidden by the gloomy forest, or it terminated in a zigzag which ascended some steep hill.
Although the distance from S. Carlos to Castro is only twelve leagues in a straight line, the formation of the road must have been a great labour. I was told that several people had formerly lost their lives in attempting to cross the forest. The first who succeeded was an Indian, who cut his way through the canes in eight days, and reached S. Carlos. He was rewarded by the Spanish government with a grant of land. During the summer, many of the Indians wander about the forests (but chiefly in the higher parts, where the woods are not quite so thick) in search of the half-wild cattle which live on the leaves of the cane, and certain trees. It was one of these huntsmen who by chance discovered, a few years since, an English vessel, which had been wrecked on the outer coast. The crew were beginning to fail in provisions, and it is not probable that, without the aid of this man, they would have been able to have extricated themselves from these scarcely penetrable woods. As it was, one seaman died on the march, from fatigue. The Indians in these excursions steer by the sun; so that if there is a continuance of cloudy weather, they cannot travel.
The day was beautiful, and the number of trees which were in full flower perfumed the air; yet even this could scarcely dissipate the effect arising from the gloomy dampness of the forest. Moreover, the many dead trunks that stand like skeletons, never fail to give to these primeval woods a character of solemnity which is wanting in those of countries long civilized. Shortly after sunset we bivouacked for the night. Our female companion, who was rather good-looking, belonged to one of the most respectable families in Castro: she rode, however, astride, and without shoes or stockings. I was surprised at the total want of pride shown by her and her brother. They brought food with them, but at all our meals sat watching Mr. King and myself whilst eating, till we were fairly shamed into feeding the whole party. The night was cloudless; and while lying in our beds, we enjoyed the sight (and it is a high enjoyment) of the multitude of stars which illumined the darkness of the forest.
JANUARY 23D.--We rose early in the morning, and reached the pretty quiet town of Castro by two o’clock. The old governor had died since our last visit, and in his place a Chileno was acting. We had a letter of introduction to Don Pedro. We found him exceedingly hospitable and kind, and with a degree of disinterestedness which is more common in La Plata than on this side of the continent. The next day Don Pedro procured us fresh horses, and offered to accompany us himself. We proceeded to the south; generally following the coast, and passing through several hamlets, each with its large barn-like chapel, built of wood. Near Castro we saw a remarkably pretty waterfall: it was very small, but the water fell in a single sheet into a large circular basin, around which stately trees, from 100 to 120 feet high, cast a dark shade. At Vilipilli, Don Pedro asked the commandant to give us a guide to Cucao. The old gentleman offered to come himself; but for a long time he would not believe that any thing could induce two Englishmen to go to such an out of the way place as Cucao. We thus were accompanied by the two greatest aristocrats in the country; as was plainly to be seen in the manner of all the poorer Indians towards them.
At Chonchi, we struck off across the island, and followed intricate winding paths, sometimes passing through magnificent forests, and then opening into pretty cleared spots, abounding with corn and potato crops. In this undulating woody country, partially cultivated, there was something which reminded me of the wilder parts of England, and therefore had to my eye a most fascinating aspect. At Vilinco, which is situated on the borders of the lake of Cucao, only a few fields are cleared; and all the inhabitants appear to be Indians. This lake is twelve miles long, and runs in an east and west direction. From local circumstances, the sea-breeze blows very regularly during the day, and during the night it falls calm. This has given rise to strange exaggerations: for the phenomenon, as described to us at S. Carlos, was quite a prodigy.
The road to Cucao was so very bad, that we determined to embark in a periagua. The commandant, in the most authoritative manner, ordered six Indians to get ready to pull us over, without deigning to tell them whether they would be paid. The periagua is a strange rough boat, but the crew were still stranger; I doubt if six uglier little men ever got into a boat together. They pulled, however, very well and cheerfully: the stroke-oar gabbled Indian, and uttered strange cries, much after the fashion of a pig-driver when driving his pigs. We started with a light breeze against us, but yet reached, before late at night, the Capella de Cucao. The country on each side of the lake was one unbroken forest.
In the same periagua with us, a cow was embarked. To get so large an animal into a small boat appears at first a difficulty; but the Indians managed it in a minute. They brought the cow alongside the boat, which was heeled towards her; then placing two oars under her belly, with their ends resting on the gunwale, by the aid of these levers they fairly tumbled the poor beast, heels over head, into the bottom of the boat, and then lashed her down with ropes. At Cucao, we found an uninhabited hovel (which is the residence of the padre when he pays this Capella a visit), where, lighting a fire, we cooked our supper, and were very comfortable.
The district of Cucao is the only inhabited part on the whole west coast of Chiloe. It contains about thirty or forty Indian families, who are scattered along four or five miles of the shore. They are very much secluded from the rest of Chiloe, and have scarcely any sort of commerce, except sometimes in a little oil, which they get from seal-blubber. They are pretty well dressed, in clothes of their own manufacture, and they have plenty to eat. They seemed, however, discontented, yet humble to a degree which it was quite painful to witness. The former feeling is, I think, chiefly to be attributed to the harsh and authoritative manner in which they are treated by their rulers. Our companions, although so very civil to us, behaved to the poor Indians as if they had been slaves, rather than free men. They ordered provisions and the use of their horses, without ever condescending to say how much, or indeed whether the owners should be paid at all. In the morning, being left alone with these poor people, we soon ingratiated ourselves by presents of cigars and maté. A lump of white sugar was divided between all present, and tasted with the greatest curiosity. The Indians ended all their complaints by saying, “and it is only because we are poor Indians, and know nothing; but it was not so when we had a king.”
The next day, after breakfast, we road to Punta Huantamó, a few miles to the northward. The road lay along a very broad beach, on which, even after so many fine days, a terrible surf was breaking. I was assured that after a heavy gale, the roar can be heard at night even at Castro, a distance of no less than twenty-one sea miles, across a hilly and wooded country. We had some difficulty in reaching the point, owing to the intolerably bad paths; for every where in the shade the ground soon becomes a perfect quagmire. The point itself is a bold rocky hill. It is covered by a plant allied, I believe, to Bromelia, and called by the inhabitants Chepones. In scrambling through the beds, our hands were very much scratched. I was amused by observing the precaution our Indian guide took, in turning up his trousers, thinking that they were more delicate than his own hard skin. This plant bears a fruit, in shape like an artichoke, in which a number of seed-vessels are packed; these contain a pleasant sweet pulp, here much esteemed. I saw at Lowe’s Harbour, the Chilotans making chichi, or cider, with this fruit: so true is it, as Humboldt remarks, that almost every where man finds means of preparing some kind of beverage from the vegetable kingdom. The savages, however, of Tierra del Fuego, and I believe of Australia, have not advanced thus far in the arts.
The coast to the northward of Punta Huantamó is exceedingly rugged and broken, and is fronted by many breakers, on which the sea is eternally roaring. Mr. King and myself were anxious to return, if it had been possible, on foot along this coast; but even the Indians said it is quite impracticable. We were told that men have crossed by striking directly through the woods from Cucao to S. Carlos, but never by the coast. On these expeditions, the Indians carry with them only toasted corn, and of this they eat sparingly twice a day.
26TH.--Re-embarking in the periagua, we returned across the lake, and then mounted our horses. The whole of Chiloe took advantage of this week of unusually fine weather, to clear the ground by burning. In every direction volumes of smoke were curling upwards. Although the inhabitants were so assiduous in setting fire to every part of the wood, yet I did not see a single fire which they had succeeded in making extensive. We dined with our friend the commandant, and did not reach Castro till after dark.
The next morning we started very early. After having ridden for some time, we obtained from the brow of a steep hill an extensive view (and it is a rare thing on this road) of the great forest. Over the horizon of trees, the volcano of Corcovado, and the great flat-topped one to the northward, stood out in proud pre-eminence; scarcely another peak in the long range showed its snowy top. I hope it will be long before I forget this farewell view of the magnificent Cordillera of Chiloe. At night we bivouacked under a cloudless sky, and the next morning reached S. Carlos. We arrived on the right day, for before evening heavy rain commenced.
FEBRUARY 4TH.--Sailed from Chiloe. During the last week I made several short excursions. One was to examine a great bed of oyster and Venus shells, of the same kind now living in the neighbouring bay, but elevated 350 feet (measured by the barometer) above the level of the sea. From among these shells large forest-trees were growing. Another ride was to P. Huechucucuy. I had with me a guide who knew the country far too well; for he would pertinaciously tell me the Indian name for every little point, rivulet, and creek. In the same manner as in Tierra del Fuego, the Indian language appears singularly well adapted for attaching names to the most trivial divisions of the land. I believe every one was glad to say farewell to Chiloe. Yet if we could forget the gloom and ceaseless rain of winter, Chiloe might pass for a charming island. There is, also, something very attractive in the simplicity and humble politeness of all the poor inhabitants.
We steered along shore to the northward, but owing to thick weather, did not reach Valdivia till the night of the eighth. The external features of the whole line of country were the same with the central parts of Chiloe. The forest was nowhere cleared away. On the sea-coast bold rocky points projected, but further inland the older formations were covered up by plains, belonging to geological periods of no great antiquity. The next morning, after anchoring in the fine harbour of Valdivia, the boat proceeded to the town, which is distant about ten miles. We followed the course of the river, occasionally passing a few hovels, and patches of ground cleared out of the otherwise unbroken forest; and sometimes meeting a canoe with an Indian family. The town is situated on the low banks of the stream, and is so completely buried in a wood of apple-trees, that the streets are merely paths in an orchard.
I have never seen any country where apple-trees appeared to thrive so well as in this damp part of South America. On the borders of the roads there were many young trees which had evidently planted themselves. In Chiloe, the inhabitants possess a marvellously short method of making an orchard. At the lower part of almost every branch, small, conical, brown, wrinkled points project: these are always ready to change into roots, as may sometimes be seen, where any mud has been accidentally splashed against the tree. A branch as thick as a man’s thigh is chosen, and is cut off just beneath a group of these points; all the smaller branches are lopped off, and it is then placed about two feet deep in the ground: the operation is performed in the earliest part of the spring. During the succeeding summer, the stump throws out very long shoots, and sometimes even bears fruit. I was shown one which had produced as many as twenty-three apples, but this was thought very unusual. The ensuing summer, the first year shoots throw out others, and by the third season the stump is changed (as I have myself seen) into a well-wooded tree, loaded with an abundance of fruit. I understand there is one kind of apple-tree in England, which can be treated in a similar manner; but I believe the rapidity of growth, and at the same time production of fruit, is very inferior to that of the trees in Chiloe. An old man near Valdivia illustrated his motto, “Necessidad es la madre del invencion,” by giving an account of the several useful things he manufactured from his apples. After making cider, he extracted from the refuse a white and very finely-flavoured spirit: by another process he procured a sweet treacle, or, as he called it, honey. He likewise showed us wine derived from the same fruit. The children and pigs seemed almost to live, during this season of the year, in the orchards.
FEBRUARY 11TH.--I set out with a guide on a short ride, in which, however, I managed to see singularly little, either of the geology of the country, or of its inhabitants. There is not much cleared land near Valdivia: after crossing a river at the distance of a few miles, we entered the forest, and then passed only one miserable hovel, before reaching our sleeping-place for the night. The short difference in latitude, of 150 miles, has given another aspect to the forest, compared to that of Chiloe. This is owing to a slightly different proportion in the kinds of trees. The evergreens do not appear to be quite so numerous; and the forest in consequence is coloured by a brighter and more lively green. In the same manner as in Chiloe, the lower parts are matted together by canes. Here also another kind of the same family (resembling the bamboo of Brazil, and about twenty feet in height), grows in clusters, and ornaments the banks of some of the streams in a very pretty manner. It is with this plant that the Indians make their chuzos, or long tapering spears. Our resting-house was so dirty that I preferred sleeping outside. The first night on these journeys is generally an uncomfortable one, because one’s body is not accustomed to the tickling and biting of the fleas. I am sure, in the morning, there was not a space on my legs of the size of a shilling, which had not its little red mark, where the flea had feasted.
12TH.--We continued to ride through the uncleared forest; only occasionally meeting an Indian on horseback, or a troop of fine mules bringing alerce planks and corn from the southern plains. In the afternoon one of the horses knocked up: we were then on the brow of a hill, which commanded a fine view of the Llanos. The view of these open plains was very refreshing, after being hemmed in and buried amongst a wilderness of trees. The uniformity of a forest soon becomes very wearisome. This west coast makes me remember with pleasure the free, unbounded plains of Patagonia; yet with the true spirit of contradiction, I cannot forget how sublime is the silence of the forest. The Llanos are the most fertile and thickly-peopled parts of the country; as they possess the immense advantage of being nearly free from trees. Before leaving the forest we crossed some flat little lawns, around which single trees encroached, in the same manner as in an English park. It is curious how frequently a plain seems hostile to the growth of trees. Humboldt found much difficulty in endeavouring to account for their presence in certain parts of South America, and their absence in other parts. It appears to me, that the level state of the surface very frequently determines this point; but the cause of its doing so I do not know. In the case of Tierra del Fuego, the deficiency of trees on level ground is probably owing to the accumulation of too much moisture in such situations. But to the northward of Maldonado, in Banda Oriental, where we have a fine undulating country, with streams of water (which are themselves fringed with woods); the circumstance appears to me, as I have before stated; of very difficult explanation.
On account of the tired horse; I determined to stop close by, at the Mission of Cudico; to the friar of which I had a letter of introduction. Cudico is an intermediate district between the forest and the Llanos. There are a good many cottages; with patches of corn and potatoes; nearly all belonging to Indians. The tribes dependant on Valdivia are “reducidos y cristianos.” The Indians further northward; about Arauco and Imperial, are still very wild and not converted; but they all have much intercourse with the Spaniards. The padre said that the Christian Indians did not much like coming to mass, but that otherwise they show respect for religion. The greatest difficulty is in making them observe the ceremonies of marriage. The wild Indians take as many wives as they can support; and a cacique will sometimes have more than ten. On entering his house, the number may be told by that of the separate fires. This plan must be a good one to prevent quarrelling. Each wife lives a week in turn with the cacique; but all are employed in weaving ponchos, &c., for his advantage. To be the wife of a cacique is an honour much sought after by the Indian women.
The men of all the tribes wear a coarse woollen poncho; but those south of Valdivia wear short trousers, and those northward a petticoat, like the chilipa of the Gauchos. All have their long hair bound by a scarlet fillet round their heads; but otherwise they are uncovered. These Indians are good-sized men; their cheek-bones are very prominent, and in general appearance they resemble the great American family to which they belong; but their physiognomy seemed to me to be slightly different from that of any other tribe which I had before seen. Their expression is generally grave and even austere, and possesses much character: this may pass either for honest bluntness, or fierce determination. The long black hair, the grave and much-lined features, and the dark complexion, called to my mind old portraits of James the First; but very likely the resemblance may be imaginary. On the road we met with none of that humble politeness so universal in Chiloe. Some gave their “mari mari” (good morning) with promptness, but the greater number did not seem inclined to offer any salute. This independence of manners is probably a consequence of their long wars, and the repeated victories which they alone of all the tribes in America have gained over the Spaniards.
I spent the evening very pleasantly, talking with the padre. He was exceedingly kind and hospitable; and coming from Santiago, had contrived to surround himself with some few comforts. Being a man of some little education, he bitterly complained of the total want of society. With no particular zeal for religion, no business or pursuit, how completely must this man’s life be wasted! Finding nothing which tempted me either to stay or to proceed, the next day we set out on our return through the forest. We met on the road seven very wild Indians. Amongst them were some caciques, who had been receiving a yearly stipend, which is paid to some who have long remained faithful. They were fine-looking men, and they rode one after the other, with most gloomy faces. An old cacique, who headed them, had been, I suppose, more excessively drunk than the rest, for he seemed both extremely grave and very crabbed. Shortly before this, two Indians joined us, who were travelling from a distant mission to Valdivia, concerning some lawsuit. One was a good-humoured old man, but from his wrinkled beardless face looked more like an old woman than a man. I frequently presented both of them with cigars; and though ready to receive them, and I dare say grateful, they would hardly condescend to thank me. A Chilotan Indian would have taken off his hat and given his “Dios le page!” (May God repay you!)--The travelling was very tedious, both from the badness of the roads, and from the number of great fallen trees, which it was necessary either to leap over, or to avoid by making long circuits. We slept on the road; and next morning reached Valdivia, whence I proceeded on board.
A few days afterwards I crossed the bay with a party of officers, and landed near the fort called Niebla. The buildings were in a most ruinous state, and the gun-carriages quite rotten. Mr. Wickham remarked to the commanding officer, that with one discharge they would certainly all fall to pieces. The poor man, trying to put a good face upon it, gravely replied, “No, I am sure, sir, they would stand two!” The Spaniards must have intended to have made this place impregnable. There is now lying in the middle of the courtyard a little mountain of mortar, which rivals in hardness the rock on which it is placed. It was brought from Chile, and cost seven thousand dollars. The revolution having broken out, prevented its being applied to any purpose, and now it remains a monument of the fallen greatness of Spain.
I wanted to go to a house about a mile and a half distant; but my guide said it was quite impossible to penetrate the wood in a straight line. He offered, however, to lead me, by following obscure cattle-tracks, the shortest way; the walk, nevertheless, took no less than three hours! This man is employed in hunting strayed cattle; yet, well as he must know the woods, he was not long since lost for two whole days, and had nothing to eat. These facts convey a good idea of the impracticability of the forests of these countries. A question often occurred to me--How long does any vestige of a fallen tree remain? This man showed me one which a party of fugitive royalists had cut down fourteen years ago; and taking this as a criterion, I should think a bole a foot and a half in diameter would in thirty years present a mere ridge of mould.
FEBRUARY 20TH.--The day has been memorable in the annals of Valdivia, for the most severe earthquake experienced by the oldest inhabitant. I happened to be on shore, and was lying down in the wood to rest myself. It came on suddenly, and lasted two minutes; but the time appeared much longer. The rocking of the ground was most sensible. The undulations appeared to my companion and myself to come from due east; whilst others thought they proceeded from south-west; which shows how difficult it is in all cases to perceive the direction of these vibrations. There was no difficulty in standing upright, but the motion made me almost giddy. It was something like the movement of a vessel in a little cross ripple, or still more like that felt by a person skating over thin ice, which bends under the weight of his body.
A bad earthquake at once destroys the oldest associations: the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, has moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid;--one second of time has conveyed to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never have created. In the forest, as a breeze moved the trees, I only felt the earth tremble, but saw no consequences from it. Captain FitzRoy and the officers were at the town during the shock, and there the scene was more awful; for although the houses, from being built of wood, did not fall, yet they were so violently shaken that the boards creaked and rattled. The people rushed out of doors in the greatest alarm. I feel little doubt that it is these accompaniments which cause that horror of earthquakes, experienced by all those who have thus seen as well as felt their effects. Within the forest it was a deeply interesting, but by no means an awe-exciting phenomenon. The tides were very curiously affected. The great shock took place at the time of low water; and an old woman who was on the beach told me, that the water flowed very quickly, but not in big waves, to high-water mark, and then as quickly returned to its proper level; this was also evident by the line of wet sand. This same kind of quick but quiet movement in the tide happened a few years since at Chiloe, during a slight earthquake, and created much causeless alarm. In the course of the evening there were other weaker shocks, all of which seemed to produce in the harbour the most complicated currents, and some of great strength.
22D.--We sailed from Valdivia, and on the 4th of March, entered the harbour of Concepcion. While the ship was beating up to the anchorage, which is distant several miles, I was landed on the island of Quiriquina. The mayor-domo of the estate quickly rode down to tell us the terrible news of the great earthquake of the 20th;--“that not a house in Concepcion, or Talcuhano, (the port) was standing; that seventy villages were destroyed; and that a great wave had almost washed away the ruins of Talcuhano.” Of this latter fact I soon saw abundant proof; the whole coast being strewed over with timber and furniture, as if a thousand great ships had been wrecked. Besides chairs, tables, bookshelves, &c., in great numbers, there were several roofs of cottages, which had been drifted in an almost entire state. The storehouses at Talcuhano had burst open, and great bags of cotton, yerba, and other valuable merchandise, were scattered about on the shore. During my walk round the island, I observed that numerous fragments of rock, which, from the marine productions adhering to them, must recently have been lying in deep water, had been cast up high on the beach. One of these was a slab six feet by three, and about two feet thick.
The island itself as plainly showed the overwhelming power of the earthquake, as the beach did that of the consequent great wave. The ground was fissured in many parts, in north and south lines; which direction perhaps was caused by the yielding of the parallel and steep sides of the narrow island. Some of the fissures near the cliffs were a yard wide: many enormous masses had already fallen on the beach; and the inhabitants thought, that when the rains commenced, even much greater slips would happen. The effect of the vibration on the hard primary slate, which composes the foundation of the island, was still more curious: the superficial parts of some narrow ridges were as completely shivered, as if they had been blasted by gunpowder. This effect, which was rendered very evident by the fresh fractures and displaced soil, must, during earthquakes, be confined to near the surface, for otherwise there would not exist a block of solid rock throughout Chile. This limited action is not improbable, as it is certain, that the surface of any body, when vibrating, is in a different condition from the central parts. It is, perhaps, owing to this same reason, that earthquakes do not cause quite such terrific havoc within deep mines, as would at first have been expected. I believe this convulsion has been more effectual in lessening the size of the island of Quiriquina, than the ordinary wear and tear of the weather and the sea during the course of an entire century.
The next day I landed at Talcuhano, and afterwards rode to Concepcion. Captain FitzRoy has given so detailed and accurate an account of the earthquake, that it is almost useless for me to say any thing on the subject; but I will extract a few passages from my journal. Both towns presented the most awful yet interesting spectacle I ever beheld. To a person who had formerly known the places, it possibly might have been still more impressive; for the ruins were so mingled together, and the whole scene possessed so little the air of a habitable place, that it was scarcely possible to imagine its former appearance or condition. The earthquake commenced at half-past eleven in the forenoon. If it had happened in the middle of the night the greater number of the inhabitants (which in this one province amount to many thousands),[2] instead of less than a hundred, must have perished. In Concepcion, each house, or row of houses, stood by itself, a heap or line of ruins; but in Talcuhano, owing to the great wave, little more than one layer of bricks, tiles, and timber, with here and there part of a wall left standing, could be distinguished. From this circumstance, Concepcion, although not so completely desolated, was a more terrible, and if I may so call it, picturesque sight. The first shock was very sudden. The invariable practice among the residents in these provinces, of running out of doors at the first trembling of the ground, alone saved them. The mayor-domo at Quiriquina told me, that the first notice he received of the earthquake, was finding both the horse he rode, and himself, rolling together on the ground. Rising up, he was again thrown down. He also told me that some cows, which were standing on the steep sides of the island, were rolled into the sea. The great wave, however, was far more destructive in this respect: on one low island near the head of the bay, seventy animals were washed off and drowned. It is generally thought that this has been the worst earthquake ever recorded in Chile; but as the very bad ones occur only after long intervals, this cannot easily be known; nor indeed would a much more severe shock have made any great difference, for the ruin is now complete.
After viewing Concepcion, I cannot understand how the greater number of inhabitants escaped unhurt. The houses in many parts fell outwards; thus forming in the middle of the streets little hillocks of brickwork and rubbish. Mr. Rous, the English consul, told us that he was at breakfast when the first movement warned him to run out. He had scarcely reached the middle of the courtyard, when one side of his house came thundering down. He retained presence of mind to remember, that if he once got on the top of that part which had already fallen, he should be safe. Not being able, from the motion of the ground, to stand, he crawled up on his hands and knees; and no sooner had he ascended this little eminence, than the other side of the house fell in, the great beams sweeping close in front of his head. With his eyes blinded, and his mouth choked with the cloud of dust which darkened the sky, at last he gained the street. As shock succeeded shock, at the interval of a few minutes, no one dared approach the shattered ruins; and no one knew whether his dearest friends and relations might not be perishing from the want of help. The thatched roofs fell over the fires, and flames burst forth in all parts. Hundreds knew themselves to be ruined, and few had the means of providing food for the day. Can a more miserable and fearful scene be imagined?
Earthquakes alone are sufficient to destroy the prosperity of any country. If, for instance, beneath England, the now inert subterranean forces should exert those powers which most assuredly in former geological ages they have exerted, how completely would the entire condition of the country be changed! What would become of the lofty houses, thickly-packed cities, great manufacturies, the beautiful public and private edifices? If the new period of disturbance were first to commence by some great earthquake in the dead of the night, how terrific would be the carnage! England would at once be bankrupt; all papers, records, and accounts would from that moment be lost. Government being unable to collect the taxes, and failing to maintain its authority, the hand of violence and rapine would go uncontrolled. In every large town famine would be proclaimed, pestilence and death following in its train.
Captain FitzRoy has given an account of the great wave, which, travelling from seaward, burst over Talcuhano. In the middle of the bay it was seen as one unbroken swell of the water; but on each side, meeting with resistance, it curled over, and tore up cottages and trees as it swept onwards with overwhelming force. At the head of the bay it is easy to imagine the fearful line of white breakers which three times rushed over, and almost obliterated, the ruins of the former town. Pools of salt water yet remained in the streets; and children, making boats with old tables and chairs, appeared as happy as their parents were miserable. It was, however, exceedingly interesting to observe how active and cheerful all appeared, after their heavy misfortune. It was remarked with much truth, that from the destruction being universal, no one individual was humbled more than another, or could suspect his friends of coldness; and this latter effect is perhaps the most grievous one of the loss of wealth. Mr. Rous, and a large party whom he kindly took under his protection; lived for the first week in a garden beneath some apple-trees. At first they were as merry as if it had been a picnic; but soon afterwards heavy rain caused much discomfort, for they were absolutely without shelter.
In Captain FitzRoy’s paper it is said that two explosions, one like a column of smoke, and another like the blowing of a great whale, were seen in the bay of Concepcion. The water also appeared every where to be boiling; and it “became black, and exhaled a most disagreeable sulphureous smell.” I am informed by Mr. Alison, that during the earthquake of 1822 these last-mentioned circumstances occurred in the bay of Valparaiso. The two great explosions in the first case must no doubt be connected with deep-seated changes; but the bubbling water, its black colour and fetid smell, the usual concomitants of a severe earthquake, may, I think, be attributed to the disturbance of mud containing organic matter in decay. In the bay of Callao, during a calm day, I noticed, that as the ship dragged her cable over the bottom, its course was marked by a line of bubbles.
The lower orders in Talcuhano thought that the earthquake was caused by some old Indian women, who two years ago having been offended, stopped the volcano of Antuco. This silly belief is curious, because it shows that experience has taught them to observe the constant relation between the suppressed activity of volcanoes, and the trembling of the ground. It was necessary to apply the witchcraft to the point where their knowledge stopped; and this was the closing of the volcanic vent. This saying is the more odd in this particular instance, because the result of Captain FitzRoy’s investigation was to discountenance the belief that Antuco (whatever might have been the case with the volcanoes further northward) was any way affected.
The town of Concepcion was built in the usual Spanish fashion, with all the streets running at right angles to each other. One set ranged S.W. by W. and N.E. by E., and the other N.W. by N. and S.E. by S. The walls in the former direction certainly stood better than those in the other. Captain FitzRoy[3] has likewise remarked, that the greater number of the masses of brickwork were thrown down towards the N.E. Both these circumstances perfectly agree with the general idea of the undulation having come from the S.W.; in which quarter subterranean noises were also sometimes heard. It is evident on this supposition, that the N.W. and S. E. walls, being nearly coincident with the line of undulation (or with the crests of the successive waves), would be much more likely to fall than those which had their extremities presented towards the point whence the vibration proceeded; for, in the first case, the whole wall would be thrown at the same moment out of its perpendicular. This may be illustrated by placing books edgewise on a carpet, and then, after the manner suggested by Michell, imitating the undulations of an earthquake: it will be found, that they fall with more or less readiness, according to their direction. The fissures in the ground, though not uniform, generally had a S.E. and N.W. direction;[4] and therefore they corresponded to the lines of principal flexure. Bearing in mind all these circumstances, which so clearly point to the S.W. as the chief focus of disturbance, it is a very interesting fact that the island of S. Maria,[4] situated in that quarter, was during the general uplifting of the land (to which I shall presently refer) raised to nearly three times the altitude of any other part of the coast.
The different resistance offered by the walls, according to their direction, was well exemplified in the case of the cathedral. The side which fronted the N.E. presented a grand pile of ruins, in the midst of which door-cases and masses of timber stood up, as if floating in a stream. Some of the angular blocks of brickwork were of great dimensions; and they had been rolled to a distance on the level plaza, like fragments of rock round the base of some high mountain. The side walls, though exceedingly fractured, yet remained standing; but the vast buttresses (at right angles to them, and therefore parallel to the walls that fell) were in many cases cut clean off, as if by a chisel, and hurled to the ground.
Some square ornaments on the coping of these same walls were moved by the earthquake into a diagonal position. The buttresses of the church of La Merced, at Valparaiso, and some heavy pieces of furniture in the rooms, were similarly affected by the shock of 1822.[5] Mr. Lyell[6] has also given a drawing of an obelisk in Calabria, of which the separate stones were partially turned round. In these instances, the displacement at first appears to be owing to a vorticose movement beneath each point thus affected; but such can hardly be the case. May it not be caused by a tendency in each stone to arrange itself in some particular position, with respect to the lines of vibration,--in a manner somewhat similar to pins on a sheet of paper, or on a board, when it is shaken? Generally speaking, arched doorways or windows stood much better than any other kind of building. Nevertheless, a poor lame old man, who had been in the habit, during trifling shocks, of crawling to a certain doorway, was this time crushed to pieces.
I have not attempted to give any detailed description of the appearance of Concepcion, for I feel it is quite impossible to convey the mingled feelings with which one beholds such a spectacle. Several of the officers visited it before me, but their strongest language failed to communicate a just idea of the desolation. It is a bitter and humiliating thing to see works, which have cost men so much time and labour, overthrown in one minute; yet compassion for the inhabitants is almost instantly forgotten, from the interest excited in finding that state of things produced in a moment of time, which one is accustomed to attribute to a succession of ages. In my opinion, we have scarcely beheld since leaving England, any other sight so deeply interesting.
In almost every severe earthquake which has been described, the neighbouring waters of the sea are said to have been greatly agitated. The disturbance seems generally, as in the case of Concepcion, to have been of two kinds: first, at the instant of the shock, the water swells high up on the beach, with a gentle motion, and then as quietly retreats; secondly, some little time afterwards, the whole body of the sea retires from the coast, and then returns in great waves of overwhelming force. The first and less regular movement seems to be an immediate consequence of the earthquake differently affecting a fluid and a solid, so that their respective levels are slightly deranged. But the second case is a far more important phenomenon, and at first appears of less easy explanation. In reading accounts of earthquakes, and especially of those on the west coast of America, as collated from various authors by Sir W. Parish,[7] it is certain that the first great movement of the waters has been that of retiring. Several hypotheses[8] have been invented to explain this fact. Some have supposed it owing to a vertical oscillation in the land, the water retaining its level: but this can hardly happen, even on a moderately shoal coast; for the water near the land must partake of the motion of the bottom. Moreover, as Mr. Lyell has urged, a change of level in the land will not account for movements in the sea, of a similar nature, affecting islands distant from the line of uplifted coast. This occurred at Madeira during the famous Lisbon earthquake. Juan Fernandez also offers a parallel instance; for the sea was disturbed there much in the same manner as on the coast of Chile.
The whole phenomenon, it appears to me, is due to a common undulation in the water, proceeding from a line or point of disturbance, some little way distant. If the waves sent off from the paddles of a steam-vessel be watched breaking on the sloping shore of a still river, the water will be seen first to retire two or three feet, and then to return in little breakers, precisely analogous to those consequent on an earthquake. From the oblique direction in which the waves are sent off from the paddles, the vessel has proceeded a long way ahead, before the undulation reaches the shore; and hence it is at once manifest, that this movement bears no relation to the actual displacement of the fluid from the bulk of the vessel. Indeed, it seems a general circumstance, that in all cases where the equilibrium of an undulation is thus destroyed, the water is drawn from the resisting surface to form the advancing breaker.[9] Considering then a wave produced by an earthquake as an ordinary undulation proceeding from some point or line in the offing, we can see the cause, first of its occurrence some time after the shock; secondly, of its affecting the shores of the mainland and of outlying islets in a uniform manner--namely, the water retiring first, and then returning in a mountainous breaker; and lastly, of its size being modified (as appears to be the case) by the form of the neighbouring coast. For instance Talcuhano and Callao are situated at the head of great shoaling bays, and they have always suffered from this phenomenon; whereas, the town of Valparaiso, which is seated close on the border of a profound ocean, though shaken by the severest earthquakes, has never been overwhelmed by one of these terrific deluges. On this view, we have only to imagine, in the case of Concepcion, a point of disturbance in the bottom of the sea in a south-west direction, whence the wave was seen to travel, and where the land was elevated to a greater height than any other part,--and the whole phenomenon will be explained.
It is probable that near every coast, the chief line of disturbance would be situated at that distance in the offing, where the fluid which was most agitated, from overlying the shallow bottom near the land, joined on to that part which covered the depths (but slightly moved) of the ocean. In all distant parts of the coast the small oscillations of the sea, both at the moment of the great shock, and during the lesser following ones, would be confounded with the undulation propagated from the focus of disturbance, and hence the series of movements would be undistinguishable.
The most remarkable effect (or perhaps speaking more correctly, cause) of this earthquake was the permanent elevation of the land. Captain FitzRoy having twice visited the island of Santa Maria, for the purpose of examining every circumstance with extreme accuracy, has brought a mass of evidence in proof of such elevation, far more conclusive than that on which geologists on most other occasions place implicit faith. The phenomenon possesses an uncommon degree of interest, from this particular part of the coast of Chile having previously been the theatre of several earthquakes of the worst class. It is almost certain, from the altered soundings, together with the circumstance of the bottom of the bay near Penco, consisting of hard stone, that there has been an uplifting to the amount of four fathoms, since the famous convulsion of 1751. With this additional instance fresh before us, we may assume as probable, according to the principles laid down by Mr. Lyell,[10] other small successive elevations, and may fearlessly maintain that the problem of the raised shells,[11] recorded by Ulloa, is explained.
Some of the consequences which may be deduced from the phenomena connected with this earthquake are most important in a geological point of view; but in the present work I cannot do more than simply allude to the results. Although it is known that earthquakes have been felt over enormous spaces, and strange subterranean noises likewise heard over nearly equal areas, yet few cases are on record of volcanoes, very far distant from each other, bursting out at the same moment of time. In this instance, however, at the same hour when the whole country around Concepcion was permanently elevated, a train of volcanoes situated in the Andes, in front of Chiloe, instantaneously spouted out a dark column of smoke, and during the subsequent year continued in uncommon activity. It is, moreover, a very interesting circumstance, that, in the immediate neighbourhood, these eruptions entirely relieved the trembling ground, although at a little distance, and in sight of the volcanoes, the island of Chiloe was strongly affected. To the northward, a volcano burst out at the bottom of the sea adjoining the island of Juan Fernandez, and several of the great chimneys in the Cordillera of central Chile commenced a fresh period of activity. We thus see a permanent elevation of the land, renewed activity through habitual vents, and a submarine outburst, forming parts of one great phenomenon. The extent of country throughout which the subterranean forces were thus unequivocally displayed, measures 700 by 400 geographical miles. From several considerations, which I have not space here to enter on, and especially from the number of intermediate points whence liquefied matter was ejected, we can scarcely avoid the conclusion, however fearful it may be, that a vast lake of melted matter, of an area nearly doubling in extent that of the Black Sea, is spread out beneath a mere crust of solid land.
The elevation of the land to the amount of some feet during these earthquakes, appears to be a paroxysmal movement, in a series of lesser and even insensible steps, by which the whole west coast of South America has been raised above the level of the sea. In the same manner, the most violent explosion from any volcano is merely one in a series of lesser eruptions: and we have seen that both these phenomena, which are in so many ways related, are parts of one common action, only modified by local circumstances. With respect to the cause of the paroxysmal convulsion in particular portions of the great area which is simultaneously affected, it can be shown to be extremely probable, that it is owing to the giving way of the superincumbent strata, (and this giving way probably is a consequence of the tension from the general elevation) and their interjection by fluid rock--one step in the formation of a mountain chain. On this view we are led to conclude, that the unstratified mass forming the axis of any mountain, has been pumped in when in a fluid state, by as many separate strokes as there were earthquakes. For instance, in the case of Concepcion, during the few months subsequent to the great shock, upwards of three hundred tremours of the ground were felt, each of which indicated a fresh fracture, and injection of the fluid stone. It is a case precisely analogous to what happens in all bad eruptions, which are invariably followed by a succession of smaller ones: the difference is, that in the volcano the lava is ejected, while in the formation of a mountain chain it is injected. This view of the extremely gradual elevation of a line of mountains, will alone explain the difficulty (which, as far as I am aware, has never been attempted to be solved) of the axis consisting of rock which has become solid under the pressure of the superincumbent strata, while yet these same strata, in their present inclined and vertical positions, cannot possibly cover more than a small portion of that axis.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In another work I shall have occasion to refer to this eruption, which is connected with one of the grandest series of volcanic phenomena on record.
[2] Miers estimates them at 40,000; but the towns in some of the other provinces were likewise overthrown.
[3] Sketch of Surveying Voyages of Adventure and Beagle by Captain FitzRoy, Royal Geograph. Journal, vol. vi., p. 320.
[4] Ditto, p. 327, et passim.
[5] Miers’s Chile, vol. i., p. 392.
[6] Lyell’s Principles of Geology, chap. xv., book ii.
[7] Sir W. Parish had the kindness to lend me the original manuscript, which was read before the Geological Society, March 5th, 1835.
[8] Lyell’s Geology, book ii., ch. xvi.
[9] I am indebted to Mr. Whewell for explaining to me the probable movements on the shore, of an undulation of which the equilibrium has been destroyed.
[10] Lyell’s Geology, book ii., chap. xvi.
[11] I saw these shells in very great quantities on the flanks of the island of Quiriquina.
Chapter XVII
Valparaiso--Passage of Andes by Portillo pass--Sagacity of mules--Mountain torrents--Mines, how discovered--Marine alluvium in valleys--Effect of snow on surface--Geology, fossil shells, double range, two periods of elevation--Red snow--Winds on the crest--Snow thawing in pinnacles--Dry and clear atmosphere --Electricity--Pampas--Zoology of opposite sides of Andes--Uniformity of Patagonia--Locusts--Great bugs--Mendoza--Uspallata--Silicified trees in vertical position--Indian ruins--Change of climate --Earthquake arching bed of river--Cumbre--Valparaiso.
PASSAGE OF CORDILLERA.
MARCH 7TH, 1835.--We staid only three days at Concepcion, and then sailed for Valparaiso. The wind being northerly, we only reached the mouth of the harbour of Concepcion before it was dark. Being very near the land, and a fog coming on, the anchor was dropped. Presently a large American whaler appeared close alongside of us; and we heard the Yankee swearing at his men, to make them keep quiet, whilst he listened where the breakers were. Captain FitzRoy hailed him in a loud clear voice, to anchor where he then was. The poor man must have thought the voice came from the shore: such a Babel of cries issued at once from the ship--every one hallooing out, “Let go the anchor! veer cable! shorten sail!” It was the most laughable thing I ever heard. If the ship’s crew had been all captains, and no men, there could not have been a greater uproar of orders. We afterwards found that the mate stuttered. I suppose all hands were assisting him in giving his orders.
On the 11th we anchored at Valparaiso; and two days afterwards I set out on an excursion to cross the Cordillera. I proceeded to Santiago, where Mr. Caldcleugh most kindly assisted me in every possible way, in making the little preparations which were necessary. In this immediate part of Chile there are two passes across the Andes to Mendoza, and the plains on the opposite side. The one most commonly used, namely, that of Aconcagua, or Uspallata, is situated some way to the northward of the capital: the other, called the Portillo, is to the southward, and less distant. The latter is, however, rather more lofty, and from the double chain, more dangerous during a snow-storm. For these reasons it is but little used, especially late in the season.
MARCH 18TH.--We set out for the Portillo pass. Leaving Santiago we crossed the wide burnt-up plain on which that city stands, and in the afternoon arrived at the Maypo, one of the principal rivers in Chile. The valley, at the point where it enters the first Cordillera, is bounded on each side by lofty barren mountains; and although not broad, it is very fertile. Numerous cottages were surrounded by vines, and by orchards of apple, nectarine, and peach trees; the boughs of the latter breaking with the weight of the beautiful ripe fruit.
In the evening we passed the custom-house, where our luggage was examined. The frontier of Chile is better guarded by the Cordillera, than by the waters of the sea. There are very few valleys which lead to the central ranges, and, except by these, the mountains are far too steep and lofty for any beast of burden to pass over them. The custom-house officers were very civil; which was perhaps partly owing to the passport which the President of the republic had given me; but I must also express my admiration at the natural politeness of almost every Chileno. In this instance the contrast with the same class of men in most other countries was strongly marked. I may mention an anecdote with which I was much pleased at the time. We met near Mendoza a little and very fat negress, riding astride on a mule. She had a goître so enormous, that it was scarcely possible to avoid gazing at her for a moment; but my two companions almost instantly, by way of apology, made the common salute of the country, by taking off their hats. Where would one of the lower classes in Europe have shown such feeling politeness to a poor and miserable object of a degraded race?
At night we slept at a cottage. Our manner of travelling was delightfully independent. In the inhabited parts we bought a little firewood, hired pasture for the animals, and bivouacked in the corner of the same field with them. Carrying an iron pot, we cooked and ate our supper under the cloudless sky, and knew no trouble. My companions were Mariano Gonzales, who had formerly accompanied me, and an “arriero,” with his ten mules and a “madrina.”
The madrina (or godmother) is a most important personage. She is an old steady mare, with a little bell round her neck; and wheresoever she goes, the mules, like good children, follow her. If several large troops are turned into one field to graze, in the morning the muleteer has only to lead the madrinas a little apart, and tinkle their bells; and, although there may be two or three hundred mules together, each immediately knows its own bell, and separates itself from the rest. The affection of these animals for their madrinas saves infinite trouble. It is nearly impossible to lose an old mule; for if detained for several hours by force, she will, by the power of smell, like a dog, track out her companions, or rather the madrina; for, according to the muleteer, she is the chief object of affection. The feeling, however, is not of an individual nature; for I believe I am right in saying, that any animal with a bell will serve as madrina. In a troop each animal carries, on a level road, a cargo weighing 416 pounds (more than twenty-nine stone); but in a mountainous country a hundred pounds less.[1] Yet with what delicate slim limbs, without any proportional bulk of muscle, these animals support so great a burden! The mule always appears to me a most surprising animal. That a hybrid should possess more reason, memory, obstinacy, social affection, and powers of muscular endurance, than either of its parents, seems to indicate that art has here out-mastered nature. Of our ten animals, six were intended for riding and four for carrying cargoes, each taking turn about. We carried a good deal of food, in case we should be snowed up, as the season was rather late for passing the Portillo.
MARCH 19TH.--We rode during this day to the last, and therefore most elevated house in the valley. The number of inhabitants became scanty; but wherever water could be brought on the land, it was very fertile. All the valleys in the Cordillera agree in the same kind of structure. An irregularly-stratified mass of well-rounded shingle, together with a little mud and sand, fills up the bottom to the depth of some hundred feet. This deposit follows the course of the valley, sloping upwards with a most gradual and gentle inclination. The rivers have removed a large part in the centre; thus leaving a terrace of equal height, but varying width, on each side. This narrow space between the cliffs bordering the bed of the river, and the foot of the mountains, is the only part fit for cultivation, and on it likewise the road is carried.
The rivers, such as the Maypo, which flow in these valleys, should rather be called mountain torrents. Their inclination is very great, and their water the colour of mud. The roar which the Maypo made, as it rushed over the great rounded fragments, was like that of the sea. Amidst the din of rushing waters, the noise from the stones, as they rattled one over another, was most distinctly audible even at a distance. This rattling noise, night and day, may be heard along the whole course of the torrent. The sound spoke eloquently to the geologist: the thousands and thousands of stones, which, striking against each other, make the one dull uniform sound, are all hurrying in one direction. It is like thinking of time, where the minute that now glides past is irrecoverable. So is it with these stones; the ocean is their eternity, and each note of that wild music tells of one other step towards their destiny.
It is not possible for the mind to comprehend, except by a slow process, any effect which is produced by a cause repeated so often, that the multiplier itself ceases to convey any more definite idea, than the savage receives when he points to the hairs of his head. As often as I have seen beds of mud, sand, and shingle, accumulated to the thickness of many thousand feet, I have felt inclined to exclaim that causes, such as the present rivers and the present beaches, could never have ground down such masses. But, on the other hand, when listening to the rattling noise of these torrents, and calling to mind that whole races of animals have passed away from the surface of the globe, during the period throughout which, night and day, these stones have gone rattling onwards in their course, I have thought to myself, can any mountains, any continent, withstand such waste?
In this part of the valley, the mountains on each side are from about three to six or eight thousand feet high: their outline is rounded, but with steep and bare flanks. The general colour of the rock is a dullish purple, and the stratification very distinct. If the scenery is not beautiful, it is remarkable and grand. We met during the day several herds of cattle, which men were driving down from the higher valleys in the Cordillera. This sign of the approaching winter hurried our steps, more than was convenient for geological purposes. The house where we slept was situated at the foot of a mountain, on the summit of which are the mines of S. Pedro de Nolasko.
Sir F. Head wonders how mines have been discovered in situations so extraordinary, as the bleak summit of the mountain of S. Pedro de Nolasko. In the first place, metallic veins in this country are generally harder than the surrounding strata: hence, during the gradual degradation of the hills, they project above the surface of the ground. Secondly, almost every labourer, especially in the northern parts of Chile, understands something about the appearance of ores. In the great mining provinces of Coquimbo and Copiapó, firewood is very scarce, and men are employed in searching for it over every hill and dale; and by this means nearly all the richest mines have there been discovered. Chanuncillo, from which silver, to the value of many hundred thousand pounds has been raised in the course of a few years, was thus discovered: a man having thrown a stone at his loaded donkey, afterwards thought that it was very heavy, and picking it up again, he found it was full of pure silver. The vein occurred at no great distance, standing up like a wedge of silver. The miners also, on Sundays, taking a crowbar with them, often set out on such discoveries. In the south part of Chile, the men who drive cattle into the Cordillera, and who frequent every ravine where there is a little pasture, are the usual agents.
MARCH 20TH.--As we ascended the valley, the vegetation, with the exception of a few pretty alpine flowers, became exceedingly scanty; and of birds, animals, or insects, scarcely one could be seen. The lofty mountains, their summits marked with a few patches of snow, stood well separated from each other; the valleys being filled up with an immense thickness of stratified alluvium. I may here briefly remark, without detailing the reasons on which the opinion is grounded, that in all probability this matter was accumulated at the bottoms of deep arms of the sea, which running from the inland basins, penetrated to the axis of the Cordillera,--in a similar manner to what now happens in the southern part of this same great range. This fact, in itself most curious, as preserving a record of a very ancient state of things, possesses a high theoretical interest, when considered in relation to the kind of elevation by which the present great altitude of these mountains has been attained.
The features in the scenery of the Andes which struck me most, as contrasted with the few other mountain chains with which I am acquainted, were,--the flat fringes sometimes expanding into narrow plains on each side the valleys,--the bright colours, chiefly red and purple, of the utterly bare and precipitous hills,--the grand and continuous wall-like dikes,--the strongly-marked strata which, when nearly vertical, form the most picturesque and wild pinnacles, but where less inclined, great massive mountains; the latter occupying the outskirts of the range, and the former the more lofty and central parts,--lastly, the smooth conical piles of fine and brightly-coloured detritus, which slope at a high angle from the flanks of the mountains to their bases, some of the piles having a height of more than two thousand feet.
I frequently observed both in Tierra del Fuego, and within the Andes, that where the rock was covered during the greater part of the year with snow, it was shivered in a very extraordinary manner into small angular fragments. Scoresby[2] has observed the same fact in Spitzbergen: he says, “The invariably broken state of the rocks appeared to have been the effect of frost. On calcareous rocks, some of which are not impervious to moisture, the effect is such as might have been expected; but how frost can operate in this way on quartz is not so easily understood.” The whole phenomenon appears to me rather obscure: for that part of the mountain which is covered during many months by a mantle of snow, must be less subject to repeated and great changes of temperature than any other, yet it is the most affected. I have sometimes thought, that the earth and fragments of stone lying on the surface, were perhaps less effectually removed by means of slowly percolating snow-water,[3] than by the agency of rain, and therefore that the appearance of a quicker decay of the solid rock may be deceptive. Whatever the cause may be, the quantity of crumbling stone on the Cordillera is very great. Occasionally in the spring, masses of such matter slide down the mountains, and cover the snow-drifts in the valleys; thus forming natural ice-houses. We rode over one, the elevation of which was far below the limit of perpetual congelation.
As the evening drew to a close, we reached the Valle del Yeso. This is a very singular basin, which must have once been a very deep and large lake: the barrier is formed by a huge mountain of alluvium, on one side of which the river has cut a gorge. The plain is covered by a little dry pasture, and amidst the surrounding rocky deserts we had the pleasant sight of a herd of cattle. The valley takes its name of Yeso from a great bed, I should think at least two thousand feet thick, of white, and in some parts quite pure, gypsum. We slept with a party of men, who were employed in loading mules with this substance, which is used in the manufacture of wine.
MARCH 21ST.--We set out early in the morning, and continued to follow the course of the river, which by this time had become small, till we arrived at the foot of the ridge that separates the waters flowing into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The road, which as yet had been good, with a steady but very gradual ascent, now changed into a steep zigzag track. The Cordillera in this part consists of two principal ranges; the passes across which attain respectively an elevation of 13,210 and 14,365 feet.[4] The first great line (consisting of course of many subordinate ones) is called Peuquenes. It divides the waters, and therefore likewise the republics of Chile and Mendoza. To the eastward, a mountainous and elevated region separates it from the second range (called the Portillo) overlooking the Pampas. The streams from the intermediate tract find a passage a little way to the southward through this second line.
I will here give a very brief sketch of the geological structure of these mountains: first, of the Peuquenes, or western line; for the constitution of the two ranges is totally different. The lowest stratified rock is a dull red or purple claystone porphyry, of many varieties, alternating with conglomerates, and breccia composed of a similar substance: this formation attains a thickness of more than a mile. Above it there is a grand mass of gypsum, which alternates, passes into, and is replaced by, red sandstone, conglomerates, and black calcareous clay-slate. I hardly dare venture to guess the thickness of this second division; but I have already said some of the beds of gypsum alone attain a thickness of at least two thousand feet. Even at the very crest of the Peuquenes, at the height of 13,210 feet, and above it, the black clay-slate contained numerous marine remains, amongst which a gryphæa is the most abundant, likewise shells, resembling turritellæ, terebratulæ, and an ammonite. It is an old story, but not the less wonderful, to hear of shells, which formerly were crawling about at the bottom of the sea, being now elevated nearly fourteen thousand feet above its level. The formation probably is of the age of the central parts of the secondary series of Europe.
These great piles of strata have been penetrated, upheaved, and overturned, in the most extraordinary manner, by masses of injected rock, equalling mountains in size. On the bare sides of the hills, complicated dikes, and wedges of variously-coloured porphyries and other stones, are seen traversing the strata in every possible form and direction; proving also by their intersections, successive periods of violence. The rock which composes the axis of these great lines of dislocation, at a distance very closely resembles granite, but on examination, it is found rarely to contain any quartz; and instead of ordinary felspar, albite.
The metamorphic action has been very great, as might have been expected from the close proximity of such grand masses of rock, which were injected when in a liquefied state from heat. When it is known, first, that the stratified porphyries have flowed as streams of submarine lava under an enormous pressure, and that the mechanical beds separating them owe their origin to explosions from the same submarine craters; secondly, that the whole mass in the lower part has generally been so completely fused into one solid rock by metamorphic action, that the lines of division can only be traced with much difficulty; and thirdly, that masses of porphyry, undistinguishable by their mineralogical characters from the two first kinds, have been subsequently injected;--the extreme complication of the whole will readily be believed.
We now come to the second range, which is of even greater altitude than the first. Its nucleus in the section seen in crossing the Portillo pass, consists of magnificent pinnacles of coarsely-crystallized red granite. On the eastern flank, a few patches of mica slate still adhere to the unstratified mass; and at the foot a stream of basaltic lava has burst forth at some remote period,--perhaps when the sea covered the wide surface of the Pampas. On the western side of the axis, between the two ranges, laminated fine sandstone has been penetrated by immense granitic dikes proceeding from the central mass, and has thus been converted into granular quartz rock. The sandstone is covered by other sedimentary deposits, and these again by a coarse conglomerate, the vast thickness of which I will not attempt even to estimate. All these coarse mechanical beds dip from the red granite directly towards the Peuquenes range, as if they passed beneath it; though such is not the case. On examining the pebbles composing this conglomerate (which, to my surprise, betrayed no signs of metamorphic action), I was astonished to find perfectly rounded masses of the black calcareous clay-slate with organic remains,--the same rock which I had just crossed in situ on the Peuquenes. These phenomena compel us to arrive at the following conclusion:--that the Peuquenes existed as dry land for a long period anterior to the formation of the second range, and that, during this period, immense quantities of shingle were accumulated at its submarine flank. The action of a disturbing force then commenced: these more modern deposits were injected by dikes, altered by heat, and tilted towards the line whence, in the form of sediment and pebbles, they had originally proceeded,--thus making the offspring at first appear older than its parent. This second, grand, and subsequent line of elevation is parallel to the first and more ancient one.
I will only make one other geological observation: the Portillo chain in the neighbourhood of the pass is rather more elevated than the Peuquenes, yet the waters of the intermediate district have burst a passage through it. On the supposition of a subsequent and gradual elevation of the second line, this can be understood; for a chain of islets would at first appear, and as these were lifted up, the tides would always be working out deeper and broader channels between them. At the present day, even in the most retired sounds on the southern coast, the currents in the transverse breaks which connect the longitudinal channels, is so strong, that I have heard of one instance where a small vessel under sail was whirled round and round.
Mr. Pentland,[5] when describing an hydrographical phenomenon of a nearly similar kind, but on an infinitely grander scale, which occurs in Bolivia, says, “This very curious fact, of rivers escaping through such an immense mountain-mass as the Bolivian Cordillera, is perhaps one of the most important points connected with the physical geography of this portion of the Andes, and deserves to be noticed at greater length.” It would be extremely rash to affirm that the eastern chain in Bolivia, like that of central Chile, must be of subsequent origin to the western one, or that nearer to the Pacific: but excepting through the explanation above offered, the circumstance that rivers flowing from a less elevated chain, should penetrate one far more lofty, appears to me quite inexplicable.
About noon we began the tedious ascent of the Peuquenes, and then for the first time experienced some little difficulty in our respiration. The mules would halt every fifty yards, and then the poor willing animals after a few seconds started of their own accord again. The short breathing from the rarefied atmosphere is called by the Chilenos “puna;” they have most ridiculous notions concerning its origin. Some say, “all the waters here have puna;” others that “where there is snow there is puna;”--and this no doubt is true. It is considered a kind of disease, and I was shown the crosses over the graves of some who had died “punado.” Excepting perhaps in the case of a person suffering from some organic disease of the heart or chest, I should think this must be an erroneous conclusion. A person near death, would probably at this elevation experience a more unusual difficulty in breathing than others; and hence the effect might be assumed as the cause. The only sensation I felt was a slight tightness over the head and chest; a feeling which may be experienced by leaving a warm room and running violently on a frosty day. There was much fancy even in this; for upon finding fossil shells on the highest ridge, I entirely forgot the puna in my delight. Certainly the exertion of walking was extreme, and the respiration became deep and laborious. It is incomprehensible to me, how Humboldt and others were able to ascend to the elevation of 19,000 feet. No doubt a residence of some months in the lofty region of Quito would prepare the constitution for such an exertion; yet I am told that in Potosi (about 13,000 feet), strangers do not become quite accustomed to the atmosphere for an entire year. The inhabitants all recommend onions for the puna; as this vegetable has sometimes been given in Europe for pectoral complaints, it may possibly be of real service:--for my part, I found nothing so good as the fossil shells!
When about halfway up we met a large party with seventy loaded mules. It was interesting to hear the wild cries of the muleteers, and to watch the long string descending; they appeared so diminutive, there being nothing but the bleak mountains with which they could be compared. When near the summit, the wind, as generally happens there, was impetuous and extremely cold. On each side of the ridge we had to pass over broad bands of snow, which perpetually lie there, and were now soon to be covered by a fresh layer. When we reached the crest and looked backwards, a glorious view was presented. The atmosphere resplendently clear; the sky an intense blue; the profound valleys; the wild broken forms; the heaps of ruins, piled up during the lapse of ages; the bright-coloured rocks, contrasted with the quiet mountains of snow; all these together produced a scene I never could have figured to my imagination. Neither plant nor bird, excepting a few condors wheeling around the higher pinnacles, distracted the attention from the inanimate mass. I felt glad I was alone: it was like watching a thunderstorm, or hearing a chorus of the Messiah in full orchestra.
On several of the patches of perpetual snow, I found the Protococcus nivalis, or red snow, so well known from the accounts of Arctic navigators. My attention was called to the circumstance by observing the footsteps of the mules stained a pale red, as if their hoofs had been slightly bloody. I at first thought it was owing to dust blown from the surrounding mountains of red porphyry; for from the magnifying power of the crystals of snow, the groups of these atom-like plants appeared like coarse particles. The snow was coloured only where it had thawed very rapidly, or had been accidentally crushed. A small portion of it rubbed on paper communicated a faint rose tinge, mingled with a little brick red. I placed some of the snow between the leaves of my pocket-book, and a month afterwards examined with care the pale discoloured patches on the paper. The specimens, when scraped off, were of a spherical form, with a diameter of the thousandth of an inch. The central part consists of a blood-red substance, surrounded by a colourless bark. When living on the snow they are collected in groups, many lying close together; I overlooked, however, the thin couch of gelatinous matter on which they are said to rest.[6] The dried specimens placed in any fluid, as water, spirits of wine, or dilated sulphuric acid, were acted on in two different ways: sometimes an expansion was caused, at others a contraction. The central part after immersion invariably appeared as a drop of red oily fluid, containing a few most minute granules; and these probably are the germs of new individuals.
As I before remarked, the wind on the crest of the Peuquenes is generally impetuous and very cold. It is said to blow steadily from the westward or Pacific side: a circumstance which is likewise mentioned by Dr. Gillies.[7] As these observations apply chiefly to the summer season (when the passes are frequented), we must consider this wind, as an upper and return current. The Peak of Teneriffe, with a less elevation, and situated in lat. 28°, in like manner falls within the return stream. At first it appears rather surprising, that the trade-wind along the northern parts of Chile, and on the coast of Peru, should blow in so very southerly a direction as it does; but when we reflect, that the Cordillera, running in a north and south line, intercepts, like a great wall, the entire depth of the lower atmospheric current, we can easily see, that the trade-wind must be drawn northward, following the line of mountains, towards the equatorial regions, and thus lose part of that easterly movement which it otherwise would have gained from the rotation of the world. At Mendoza, on the eastern foot of the Andes, the climate is said to be subject to long calms, and to frequent though false appearances of gathering rain-storms: we may imagine that the wind, which coming from the eastward is thus banked up by the line of mountains, would become stagnant and irregular in its movements.
Having crossed the Peuquenes, we descended into the mountainous country, intermediate between the two ranges, and then took up our quarters for the night. The elevation was probably not much under 11,000 feet, and the vegetation in consequence exceedingly scanty. The root of a small scrubby plant served as fuel, but it made a miserable fire, and the wind was piercingly cold. Being quite tired with my day’s work, I made up my bed as quickly as I could, and went to sleep. About midnight I observed the sky became suddenly clouded: I awakened the arriero to know if there was any danger of bad weather; but he said that without thunder and lightning there was no risk of a heavy snow-storm. The peril is imminent, and the difficulty of subsequent escape great, to any one overtaken by bad weather between the two Cordillera. A certain cave offers the only place of refuge: Mr. Caldcleugh, who crossed on this same day of the month, was detained there for some time by a heavy fall of snow, as is related in his travels. Casuchas, or houses of refuge, have not been built in this pass as in that of Uspallata, and therefore, during the autumn, the Portillo is little frequented. I may here remark, that within the main Cordillera rain never falls, for during the summer, the sky is cloudless, and in winter snow-storms alone occur.
At the place where we slept, water necessarily boiled, from the diminished pressure of the atmosphere, at a much lower temperature than it does in a less elevated country; the case being the converse of that of a Papin’s digester. In consequence of this, the potatoes, after remaining for some hours in the boiling water, were nearly as hard as ever. The pot was left on the fire all night, and next morning it was boiled again, but yet the potatoes were not cooked. I found out this, by overhearing my two companions discussing the cause; they had come to the simple conclusion, “that the cursed pot (which was a new one) did not choose to boil potatoes.”
MARCH 22D.--After eating our potato-less breakfast, we travelled across the intermediate tract, to the foot of the Portillo range. In the middle of summer cattle are brought up here to graze; but they had now all been removed; even the greater number of the guanacoes had decamped, knowing well, that, if overtaken by a snow-storm, they would be caught in a trap. We had a fine view of a mass of mountains called Tupungato, the whole clothed with unbroken snow. From one peak my arriero said he had once seen smoke proceeding; and I thought I could distinguish the form of a large crater. In the maps Tupungato figures as a single mountain; this Chileno method of giving one name to a tract of mountains is a fruitful source of error. In the region of snow there was a blue patch, which no doubt was a glacier;--a phenomenon that has been said not to occur in these mountains.
Now commenced a heavy and long climb, similar to that up the Peuquenes. Bold conical hills of red granite rose on each hand; and in the valley there were several broad fields of perpetual snow. These frozen masses, during the process of thawing, had in some parts assumed the form of pinnacles or columns, which, as they were high and close together, caused some difficulty on account of the cargo mules. This structure in frozen snow was long since observed by Scoresby in the icebergs near Spitzbergen, and lately, with more care, by Colonel Jackson[8] on the Neva. On one of these columns of ice a frozen horse was exposed, sticking as on a pedestal, but with its hind legs straight up in the air. To account for its strange position, we must suppose that the animal fell with its head downward into a hole, when the stratum was continuous, and that afterwards the surrounding parts were removed by the thaw.
When nearly on the crest of the Portillo, we were enveloped in a cloud which was falling, under the form of minute frozen spicula. This was very unfortunate, as it continued the whole day, and quite intercepted our view. The pass takes its name of Portillo from a narrow cleft or doorway on the highest ridge, through which the road passes. From this point, on a clear day, those vast plains which extend from the base of the mountains towards the Atlantic can be seen. We descended to the upper limit of vegetation, and found good quarters for the night under the shelter of some large fragments of rock. We here met some passengers, who made anxious inquiries about the state of the road. Shortly after it was dark, the clouds suddenly cleared away; and the effect was quite magical. The great mountains, bright with the full moon, seemed impending over us on all sides, as if we had been buried at the bottom of some deep crevice. One morning also, very early, I witnessed the same striking effect. As soon as the clouds were dispersed, it froze severely; but as there was no wind, we slept very comfortably.
The increased brilliancy of the moon and stars at this elevation, owing to the perfect transparency of the atmosphere, was very remarkable. Travellers having observed the difficulty of judging heights and distances amidst lofty mountains, have generally attributed it to the absence of objects of comparison. It appears to me that it is fully as much owing to this transparency, confounding different distances, and partly, likewise, to the novelty of an unusual degree of fatigue arising from a little exertion,--habit being thus opposed to the evidence of the senses. I am sure that this extreme clearness of the air gives a peculiar character to the landscape; all objects appearing to be brought nearly into one plane, as in a drawing or panorama. The transparency is, I presume, owing to the equable and nearly perfect state of atmospheric dryness. The latter quality was shown by the manner in which woodwork shrunk (as I soon found by the trouble my geological hammer gave me); by articles of food, such as bread and sugar, becoming extremely hard; and by the preservation of the skin and parts of the flesh of the beasts, which perish on the road. To the same cause we must attribute the singular facility with which electricity is excited. My flannel-waistcoat, when rubbed in the dark, appeared as if it had been washed with phosphorus;--every hair on a dog’s back crackled;--even the linen sheets, and leathern straps of the saddle, when handled, emitted sparks.
MARCH 23D.--The descent on the eastern side of the Cordillera is much shorter or steeper than on the Pacific side; in other words, the mountains rise more abruptly from the plains, than from the alpine country of Chile. A level and brilliantly white sea of clouds was extended beneath our feet, and thus shut out the view of the equally level Pampas. We soon entered the band of clouds, and did not again emerge from it that day. About noon, finding pasture for the animals and bushes for firewood, in a part of the valley called Los Arenales, we stopped for the night. This was near the uppermost limit of bushes, and the elevation, I suppose, was between seven and eight thousand feet.
I was very much struck with the marked difference between the vegetation of these eastern valleys and that of the opposite side: yet the climate, as well as the kind of soil, is nearly identical, and the difference of longitude very trifling. The same remark holds good with the quadrupeds, and in a lesser degree with the birds and insects. We must except certain species which habitually or occasionally frequent elevated mountains; and in the case of the birds, certain kinds, which have a range as far south as the Strait of Magellan. This fact is in perfect accordance with the geological history of the Andes; for these mountains have existed as a great barrier, since a period so remote that whole races of animals must subsequently have perished from the face of the earth. Therefore, unless we suppose the same species to have been created in two different countries, we ought not to expect any closer similarity between the organic beings on opposite sides of the Andes, than on shores separated by a broad strait of the sea. In both cases we must leave out of the question those kinds which have been able to cross the barrier, whether of salt water or solid rock.[9]
A great number of the plants and animals were absolutely the same, or most closely allied with those of Patagonia. We here have the agouti, bizcacha, three species of armadillo, the ostrich, certain kinds of partridges, and other birds, none of which are ever seen in Chile, but are the characteristic animals of the desert plains of Patagonia. We have likewise many of the same (to the eyes of a person who is not a botanist) thorny stunted bushes, withered grass, and dwarf plants. Even the black slowly-crawling beetles are closely similar, and some, I believe, on rigorous examination, absolutely identical. It had always been a subject of regret to me, that we were unavoidably compelled to give up the ascent of the St. Cruz river before reaching the mountains. I always had a latent hope of meeting with some great change in the features of the country; but I now feel sure, that it would only have been following the plains of Patagonia up an ascent.
MARCH 24TH.--Early in the morning I climbed up a mountain on one side of the valley, and enjoyed a far-extended view over the Pampas. This was a spectacle to which I had always looked forward with interest, but I was disappointed. At the first glance there was a strong resemblance to a distant view of the ocean, but in the northern parts many irregularities in the surface were soon distinguishable. The most striking feature in the scene consisted of the rivers, which, facing the rising sun, glittered like silver threads, till lost in the immensity of the distance.
In the middle of the day, we descended the valley, and reached a hovel, where an officer and three soldiers were posted to examine passports. One of these men was a thorough-bred Pampas Indian. He was kept much for the same purpose as a bloodhound, to track out any person who might pass by secretly, either on foot or horseback. Some years ago, a passenger had endeavoured to escape detection, by making a long circuit over a neighbouring mountain; but this Indian, having by chance crossed his track, followed it for the whole day, over dry and very stony parts, till at last he came on his prey hidden in a gully. We here heard that the silvery clouds, which we had admired from the bright region above, had poured down torrents of rain. The valley from this point gradually opened, and the hills became mere water-worn hillocks compared to the giants behind. It then expanded into a gently-sloping plain of shingle, covered with low trees and bushes. This talus, although it looked of little breadth, must be nearly ten miles wide, before it blends into the apparently dead level Pampas. We had already passed the only house in this neighbourhood, the Estancia of Chaquaio; and at sunset we pulled up in the first snug corner, and there bivouacked.
MARCH 25TH.--I was reminded of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, by seeing the disk of the rising sun, intersected by an horizon, level as that of the ocean. During the night a heavy dew had fallen, a fact we did not experience within the Cordillera. The road proceeded for some distance due east across a low swamp; then meeting the dry plain, it turned to the north towards Mendoza. The distance is two very long days’ journey. Our first day’s journey was called fourteen leagues to Estacado, and the second seventeen to Luxan, near Mendoza. The whole distance is over a level desert plain, with not more than two or three houses. The sun was exceedingly powerful, and the ride devoid of all interest. There is very little water in this “traversia,” and in our second day’s journey, we found only one little pool. The water flowing from the mountains is small in quantity and soon becomes absorbed by the dry and porous soil; so that, although we travelled at the distance of only ten or fifteen miles from the outer range, we did not cross a single stream. In many parts the ground was incrusted with a saline efflorescence; hence we had the same salt-loving plants, common near Bahia Blanca. The landscape has one character from the Strait of Magellan along the whole eastern coast of Patagonia to the Rio Colorado; and it appears that the same kind of country extends northerly in a sweeping line as far as San Luis, and perhaps even further. To the eastward of this line, lies the basin of the comparatively damp and green plains of Buenos Ayres. The former country, including the sterile traversia of Mendoza and Patagonia, consists of a bed of shingle, worn smooth, and accumulated by the waves of a former sea; while the formation of the Pampas (plains covered by thistles, clover, and grass) is due to the estuary mud of the Plata, deposited under a different condition of circumstances.
After our two days’ tedious journey, it was refreshing to see in the distance the rows of poplars and willows growing around the village and river of Luxan. Shortly before we arrived at this place, we observed to the southward a ragged cloud of a dark reddish-brown colour. For some time, we had no doubt but that it was thick smoke proceeding from some great fire on the plains. Soon afterwards we found it was a pest of locusts.[10] The insects overtook us, as they were travelling northward, by the aid of a light breeze, at the rate, I should suppose, of ten or fifteen miles an hour. The main body filled the air from a height of twenty feet, to that, as it appeared, of two or three thousand above the ground. The noise of their approach was that of a strong breeze[11] passing through the rigging of a ship. The sky seen through the advanced guard appeared like a mezzotinto engraving, but the main body was impervious to sight; they were not, however, so thick, but that they could escape from a stick moved backward and forward. When they alighted they were more numerous than the leaves in a field, and changed the green into a reddish colour: the swarm having once alighted, the individuals flew from side to side in any direction. The locusts are not an uncommon pest in this country: already during the season, several smaller swarms had come up from the sterile plains[12] of the south; and many trees had been entirely stripped of their leaves. Of course this swarm cannot even be compared to those of the eastern world, yet it was sufficient to make the well-known descriptions of their ravages more intelligible. I have omitted, perhaps, the most striking part of the scene,--the vain attempts of the poor cottagers to turn the stream aside. Many lighted fires and with the smoke, with shouts and waving of branches, they endeavoured to avert the attack.
We crossed the Luxan, which is a river of considerable size, though its course towards the sea-coast is very imperfectly known. It is even doubtful whether, in passing over the plains, it is evaporated, or whether it forms a tributary of the Sauce or Colorado. We slept in the village, which is a small place surrounded by gardens, and forms the most southern part, that is cultivated, of the province of Mendoza; it is five leagues south of the capital. At night I experienced an attack (for it deserves no less a name) of the Benchuca (a species of Reduvius) the great black bug of the Pampas. It is most disgusting to feel soft wingless insects, about an inch long, crawling over one’s body. Before sucking they are quite thin, but afterwards become round and bloated with blood, and in this state they are easily crushed. They are also found in the northern parts of Chile and in Peru. One which I caught at Iquique was very empty. When placed on the table, and though surrounded by people, if a finger was presented, the bold insect would immediately draw its sucker, make a charge, and if allowed, draw blood. No pain was caused by the wound. It was curious to watch its body during the act of sucking, as it changed in less than ten minutes, from being as flat as a wafer to a globular form. This one feast, for which the benchuca was indebted to one of the officers, kept it fat during four whole months; but, after the first fortnight, the insect was quite ready to have another suck.
MARCH 27TH.--We rode on to Mendoza. The country was beautifully cultivated, and resembled Chile. This neighbourhood is celebrated for its fruit; and certainly nothing could appear more flourishing than the vineyards and the orchards of figs, peaches, and olives. We bought watermelons nearly twice as large as a man’s head, most deliciously cool and well-flavoured, for a halfpenny apiece; and for the value of threepence, half a wheelbarrowful of peaches. The cultivated and enclosed part of this province is very small; there is little more than that which we passed through between Luxan and the capital. The land, as in Chile, entirely owes its fertility to artificial irrigation; and it is really wonderful to observe how abundantly productive a barren traversia is rendered by this simple process.
We staid the ensuing day in Mendoza. The prosperity of the place has much declined of late years. The inhabitants say “it is good to live in, but very bad to grow rich in.” The lower orders have the lounging, reckless manners of the Gauchos of the Pampas; and their dress, riding gear, and habits of life, are nearly the same. To my mind the town had a stupid forlorn aspect. Neither the boasted alameda, nor the scenery, is at all comparable to that of Santiago; but to those who have just crossed the unvaried savannahs of grass, on their road from Buenos Ayres, the gardens and orchards must appear delightful. Captain Head, speaking of the inhabitants, says, “They eat their dinners, and it is so very hot, they go to sleep--and could they do better?” I quite agree with Captain Head: the happy doom of the Mendozinos is to eat, sleep, and be idle.
MARCH 29TH.--We set out on our return to Chile by the Uspallata pass to the northward of Mendoza. We had to cross a long and most sterile traversia of fifteen leagues. The soil in parts was absolutely bare, in others covered by numberless dwarf cacti, armed with formidable spines, and called by the inhabitants “little lions.” There were also a few low bushes. Although the plain is elevated about three thousand feet above the sea, the sun was very powerful; this, and the clouds of impalpable dust, rendered the travelling extremely irksome. Our course during the day lay nearly parallel to the mountains, but gradually approaching them. Before sunset we entered one of the wide valleys, or rather bays, which open on the plain: this soon narrowed into a ravine, and a little higher up the house of the Villa Vicencio was situated. As we had ridden all day without a drop of water, both ourselves and our animals were very thirsty, and we looked out anxiously for the stream which flows down this valley. It was curious to observe how gradually the water made its appearance: on the plain the course was quite dry; by degrees it became a little damper; then puddles of water were formed; these soon became connected, and at Villa Vicencio there was a nice little rivulet.
30TH.--The solitary hovel which bears the imposing name of Villa Vicencio, has been mentioned by every traveller who has crossed the Andes. I staid here, and at some neighbouring mines, during the two succeeding days. The geology of the surrounding country is very curious. The Uspallata range is separated from the true Cordillera by a long narrow plain or basin, like those so often mentioned in Chile, but with an altitude of about six thousand feet. The range consists of various kinds of submarine lava, alternating with volcanic sandstones and other remarkable sedimentary deposits; the whole having a very close resemblance to some of the newer horizontal beds on the shores of the Pacific. From this resemblance I expected to find silicified wood, which is generally characteristic of those formations. I was gratified in a very extraordinary manner. In the central part of the range, at an elevation probably of seven thousand feet, on a bare slope, I observed some snow-white projecting columns. These were petrified trees, eleven being silicified, and from thirty to forty converted into coarsely-crystallized white calcareous spar. They were abruptly broken off; the upright stumps projecting a few feet above the ground. The trunks measured from three to five feet each in circumference. They stood a little way apart from each other, but the whole formed one distinct group. Mr. Robert Brown has been kind enough to examine the wood: he says it is coniferous, and that it partakes of the character of the Araucarian tribe (to which the common South Chilian pine belongs), but with some curious points of affinity with the yew. The volcanic sandstone in which they were embedded, and from the lower part of which they must have sprung, had accumulated in successive thin layers around their trunks; and the stone yet retained the impression of the bark.
It required little geological practice to interpret the marvellous story, which this scene at once unfolded; though I confess I was at first so much astonished that I could scarcely believe the plainest evidence of it. I saw the spot where a cluster of fine trees had once waved their branches on the shores of the Atlantic, when that ocean (now driven back 700 miles) approached the base of the Andes. I saw that they had sprung from a volcanic soil which had been raised above the level of the sea, and that this dry land, with its upright trees, had subsequently been let down to the depths of the ocean. There it was covered by sedimentary matter, and this again by enormous streams of submarine lava--one such mass alone attaining the thickness of a thousand feet; and these deluges of melted stone and aqueous deposits had been five times spread out alternately. The ocean which received such masses must have been deep; but again the subterranean forces exerted their power, and I now beheld the bed of that sea forming a chain of mountains more than seven thousand feet in altitude. Nor had those antagonist forces been dormant, which are always at work to wear down the surface of the land to one level: the great piles of strata had been intersected by many wide valleys; and the trees now changed into silex were exposed projecting from the volcanic soil now changed into rock, whence formerly in a green and budding state they had raised their lofty heads. Now, all is utterly irreclaimable and desert; even the lichen cannot adhere to the stony casts of former trees. Vast, and scarcely comprehensible as such changes must ever appear, yet they have all occurred within a period recent when compared with the history of the Cordillera; and that Cordillera itself is modern as compared with some other of the fossiliferous strata of South America.
APRIL 1ST.--We crossed the Uspallata range; and at night slept at the custom-house--the only inhabited spot on the plain. Shortly before leaving the mountains, there was a very extraordinary view: red, purple, green, and quite white sedimentary rocks, alternating with black lavas, were broken up and thrown into all kinds of disorder, by masses of porphyry, of every shade, from dark brown to the brightest lilac. It was the first view I ever saw, which really resembled those pretty sections which geologists make of the inside of the earth.
The next day we crossed the plain, and followed the course of the same great mountain-stream which flows by Luxan. Here it was a furious torrent, quite impassable, and appearing larger than in the low country; as was the case with the rivulet of Villa Vincencio. On the evening of the succeeding day we reached the Rio de las Vacas, which is considered the worst stream in the Cordillera to cross. As all these rivers have a rapid and short course, and are due to the snow melted by the sun’s heat, the hour of the day makes a considerable difference in their volume. In the evening the stream is muddy and full, but about daybreak it becomes both clearer and much less impetuous. This we found to be the case with the Rio Vacas, and in the morning we crossed it with little difficulty.
The scenery thus far was very uninteresting, compared with that of the Portillo pass. Little can be seen beyond the bare walls of the one grand, flat-bottomed valley, which the road follows up to the highest crest. The valley and the huge rocky mountains were extremely barren: during the two previous nights the poor mules had absolutely nothing to eat; for excepting a few low resinous bushes, scarcely a plant could be seen. We went over in the course of this day some of the worst passes in the Cordillera. The degree of exaggeration concerning their danger and difficulty is very great. In Chile I was even told, that if I attempted to pass on foot my head would turn giddy, that there was no room to dismount, &c., but I did not see a place where any one might not have walked over backwards, or got off his mule on either side. One of the bad passes called las Animas (the Souls), I had crossed, and did not find out till a day afterwards that it was one of the awful dangers. No doubt there are many parts in which, if the mule should stumble, the rider would be hurled down a great precipice; but of such a catastrophe there is much less chance than with a man on foot. I dare say, in the spring, the “laderas,” or roads, which each year are formed anew across the piles of fallen detritus, are very bad; but from what I have seen, I suspect the real danger is nothing, and the apparent very little. With cargo mules the case is rather different; for the loads project so far, that the animals occasionally running against each other, or against a point of rock, lose their balance and are thrown down the precipice. With regard to crossing the rivers, I can well believe that the difficulty amounts to every degree, till they are impracticable. At this season there was little trouble, but in the summer they must be very bad. I can quite imagine, as Captain Head describes, the different expressions of those who have passed the gulf, and those who are passing. I never heard of any man being drowned, but with loaded mules this is of frequent occurrence. The arriero tells you to show your mule the best line, and then allow her to cross as she chooses; the cargo mule takes a bad line, and is often lost.
APRIL 4TH.--From the Rio de las Vacas to the Puente del Inca, half a day’s journey. As there was pasture for the mules, and geology for me, we bivouacked for the night. When one hears of a natural bridge, one pictures to oneself some deep and narrow ravine, across which a bold mass of rock has fallen; or a great arch hollowed out like the vault of a cavern. Instead of this, the Inca’s bridge consists of a crust of stratified shingle, cemented together by the deposits of the neighbouring hot springs. It appears as if the stream had scooped out a channel on one side, leaving an overhanging ledge, which was at last met by the earth and stones falling down from the opposite cliff. Certainly an oblique junction, as would happen in such case, was very distinct on one side. The bridge of the Incas is by no means worthy of the great monarchs whose name it bears.
Close by, there were some ruins of Indian buildings. These occur in several other places; the most perfect, which I saw, being the Ruinas de Tambillos. Small square rooms were there huddled together, but placed in distinct groups. Some of the doorways were yet standing: they were formed by a cross slab of stone, but only raised about three feet high. Ulloa, in his “Noticias Americanas,” remarks on the lowness of the doors in the ancient Peruvian dwellings. These houses, when perfect, must have been capable of containing a considerable number of persons. Tradition says, they were used as halting-places for the Incas, when they crossed these mountains. Traces of Indian habitations have been discovered in many parts of the Cordillera, where it does not appear probable, that they were constructed as mere resting-places; but yet where the land is as utterly unfit for any kind of cultivation as it is near the Tambillos or Puente del Inca. In the Portillo pass I saw one group of such ruins. In the ravine of Jajuel, near Aconcagua, where there is no pass, I heard of numerous remains situated at a great elevation, where it is both cold and extremely sterile. At first I imagined, that these houses were places of refuge built by the Indians on the first arrival of the Spaniards; but subsequently I have been almost inclined to speculate on the possibility of a small change of climate.
In the northern parts of Chile, within the Cordillera of Copiapó, old Indian houses are found in very many parts: by digging amongst the ruins, bits of woollen articles, instruments of precious metals, and heads of Indian corn, are not unfrequently discovered. I had likewise in my possession the head of an arrow, made of agate, of precisely the same figure as those now used in Tierra del Fuego. I am aware that the Peruvian Indians[13] frequently inhabit most lofty and bleak situations; but in these cases, I was assured by men, who had spent their lives in travelling the Andes, that very many (muchisimas) houses were found at elevations so great as almost to border on the perpetual snow, and in parts where there exist no 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 have used them as places of residence. In the Despoblado (uninhabited valley), near Copiapó, at a spot called Punta Gorda, I saw the remains of seven or eight square little rooms, which were of a similar form with those at the Tambillos, but built chiefly of mud (which the present inhabitants cannot by any means imitate in durability[14]) instead of with stone. They were situated in the most conspicuous and defenceless position, at the bottom of a flat broad valley. There was no water nearer than three or four leagues, and that only in very small quantity, and bad: the soil was absolutely sterile;--I looked in vain even for a lichen adhering to the rocks. At the present day, with the advantage of beasts of burden, a mine, unless it were very rich, could scarcely be worked there with profit. Yet the Indians formerly chose it as a place of residence! If at the present time two or three showers of rain were to fall annually, instead of one during as many years, as now is the case, a small rill of water would in all probability be formed in this great valley, draining a mountainous country; and then, by irrigation (the method of which was formerly so well understood by the Indians), the soil might easily be rendered sufficiently productive to support a few families.
I have certain proofs that this part of the continent of South America has been elevated, near the coast, at least from four to five hundred feet, since the epoch of existing shells; and further inland the rise possibly may have been greater. As the peculiarly arid character of the climate is evidently a consequence of the height of the great range of mountains, we may feel almost sure, that prior to the latter elevations, the atmosphere was not so completely drained of its moisture as at the present day. At a remote geological era, it is probable that the Andes consisted of a chain of islands, which were covered by luxuriant forests; and many of the trees, in a silicified state, may now be seen embedded in the upper conglomerates. Of these I measured one which was cylindrical, with a circumference of fifteen feet. As it is nearly certain that the mountains have risen slowly, so would the climate likewise become deteriorated slowly. We need not feel greatly surprised at walls of stone and hardened mud here lasting for many ages, when we remember how many centuries the Druidical mounds have withstood even the climate of England. The only question is, whether the amount of change, since the introduction of man into South America, has been sufficient to cause a sensible effect on the atmospheric moisture, and therefore on the fertility of the valleys in the upper Cordillera. From the extreme slowness with which there is reason to believe the continent is rising, the longevity of man as a species, required to allow of sufficient change, is the most valid objection to the above speculations: for on the eastern shores of this continent, we have seen that several animals, belonging to the same class of mammalia with man, have passed away, while the change of level between land and water, in that part at least, has been so small, that it can scarcely have caused any sensible difference in the climate. I may add, however, that at Lima, the elevation, within the human epoch, certainly has amounted to between seventy and eighty feet.
When at Lima, I conversed on this subject[15] with Mr. Gill, a civil engineer, who had seen much of the interior country. He told me that a conjecture of a change of climate had sometimes crossed his mind; but that he thought that the greater portion of land now incapable of cultivation, but covered with Indian ruins, had been reduced to that condition, by neglect and subterranean movements injuring the water conduits, which the Indians formerly constructed on so wonderful a scale. I may here just mention that these people actually carried tunnels through hills of solid rock, when such were necessary to conduct the irrigating streams. Mr. Gill told me, he had been employed professionally to examine one; he found the passage low, narrow, crooked, and not of uniform breadth, but of very considerable length. Is it not most wonderful that any people should have attempted such operations without the aid of iron or of gunpowder!
Mr. Gill mentioned to me a most interesting, and as far as I am aware, quite unparalleled case, of the effect of subterranean disturbances in altering the drainage of a country. Travelling from Casma to Huaraz (not very far distant from Lima), he found a plain covered with ruins and marks of ancient cultivation, but now quite barren. Near it was the dry course of a considerable river, whence the water for irrigation had formerly been conducted. There was nothing in the appearance of the watercourse to indicate that the river had not flowed there a few years previously: in some parts beds of sand and gravel were scattered, and in others the solid rock had been worn into a broad channel.[16] It is self-evident that a person following up the course of a stream, will always ascend at a greater or less inclination. Mr. Gill was therefore very much astonished, when walking up the bed of this ancient river, to find himself suddenly going down hill. He imagined that the slope had a fall of about forty or fifty feet perpendicular. We here have the most unequivocal evidence, that a ridge or line of hills has been uplifted directly across the bed of a stream, which must have been flowing for many centuries. From the moment the river-course was thus arched, the water would necessarily be thrown back; and a new channel would be formed on one side some way above. From that time, also, the neighbouring plain would lose its fertilizing stream, and become converted into the desert which it now remains.
APRIL 5TH.--We had a long day’s ride across the central ridge, from the Inca’s bridge to the Ojos del Agua, which is situated near the lowest casucha on the western slope. These casuchas are little round towers, with steps outside to reach the floor, which is elevated some feet above the ground on account of the snow-drifts. They are eight in number; and under the Spanish government, were kept during the winter well stored with food and charcoal, and each courier had a master-key. Now they only answer the purpose of caves, or rather dungeons. Seated on some little eminence, they are not, however, ill suited to the surrounding scene of desolation. The zigzag ascent of the Cumbre, or the partition of the waters, was very steep and tedious. The height, according to Mr. Pentland,[17] is 12,454 feet. The road did not pass over any perpetual snow, although there were patches on either hand. The wind on the summit was exceedingly cold, but it was impossible not to stop a few minutes to admire, again and again, the colour of the heavens, and the brilliant transparency of the atmosphere. The scenery, moreover, was grand. To the westward there was a fine chaos of mountains, divided by profound ravines. Generally some snow has fallen before this period of the season, and it has even happened that the Cordillera has been finally closed by this time. But we were most fortunate. The sky, by night and by day, was cloudless, excepting perhaps a few round little masses of vapour, that floated over the highest pinnacles. I have often seen these islets in the sky, marking the position of the Cordillera, when the mountains themselves have been hidden beneath the horizon.
APRIL 6TH.--In the morning we found some thief had stolen one of our mules, and the bell of the madrina. We therefore rode only two or three miles down the valley, and staid there the ensuing day in hopes of recovering the mule, which the arriero thought had been hidden in some ravine. The scenery in this part had assumed a Chilian character: the lower parts of the mountains, dotted over with the pale evergreen Quillay tree, and with the great candlestick cactus, certainly are more to be admired than any thing in the bare Eastern valleys; but I cannot quite agree with the admiration expressed by some travellers. The extreme pleasure, I suspect, is chiefly owing to the prospect of a good fire, after escaping from the cold regions above: and I am sure I most heartily participated in such feelings.
8TH.--We left the valley of the river of Aconcagua, by which we had descended, and reached in the evening a cottage near the Villa de St. Rosa. The fertility of the plain was extremely delightful. The autumn being well advanced, the leaves of many of the fruit-trees were falling; and of the labourers--some were busy in drying figs and peaches on the roofs of their cottages; while others were gathering the grapes from the vineyards. It was a pretty scene; but that pensive stillness was absent, which makes the autumn in England indeed the evening of the year.
On the 10th we reached Santiago, where I experienced a very kind and hospitable reception from Mr. Caldcleugh. My excursion only cost me twenty-four days, and never did I more deeply enjoy an equal space of time. A few days afterwards I returned to Mr. Corfield’s house at Valparaiso.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Throughout Chile, except between Santiago and Valparaiso, every thing is conveyed on mules. This is an expensive method of transport, but unavoidable without good roads and improved waggons. In a troop of mules, there is generally a muleteer to each six animals.
[2] Scoresby’s Arctic Regions, vol. i., p. 122.
[3] I have heard it remarked in Shropshire, that the water, when the Severn is flooded from long-continued rain, is much more turbid, than when it proceeds from the snow melting on the Welsh mountains. The floods also, in the former case, are said to be more destructive to the land. D’Orbigny (vol. i., p. 184), in explaining the cause of the various colours of the rivers in South America, remarks that those with blue or clear water, have their source in the Cordillera, where the snow melts.
[4] Measurements made by Dr. Gillies; Edinburgh Journal of Nat. and Geograph. Science, August, 1830.
[5] Journal of the Royal Geograph. Society for 1835.
[6] Greville’s Scottish Cryptogam. Flora, vol. iv., p. 231.
[7] Journal of Natural and Geographical Science, August, 1830.
[8] Journal of Geograph. Soc., vol. v., p. 12. Mr. Lyell (vol. iv., p. 360) has compared the fissures, by which the columnar structure seems to be determined, to the joints that traverse nearly all rocks, but which are best seen in the non-stratified masses. I may observe, in the case of the frozen snow, the columnar structure must be owing to a “metamorphic” action and not to a process during deposition.
[9] This is merely an illustration of the admirable laws first laid down by Mr. Lyell of the geographical distribution of animals as influenced by geological changes. The whole reasoning, of course, is founded on the assumption of the immutability of species. Otherwise the changes might be considered as superinduced by different circumstances in the two regions during a length of time.
[10] The species is identical with, or resembles most closely, the famous Gryllus migratorius of eastern countries.
[11] “And the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.”--Revelat. ix. 9.
[12] Swarms of locusts sometimes overrun the more central plains of this continent. In these cases, and likewise as it appears in all parts of the world, the locusts are bred in desert plains, and thence migrate towards a more fertile country.
[13] Mr. Pentland even considers, that the love of an elevated situation is characteristic of the constitution of this race.--Geograph. Journ.
[14] Ulloa (Noticias Americanas, p. 302) remarks on the same circumstance in Peru. He adds, when speaking of the mud bricks, “which gives room to think that they had some particular method of working them, that they should become hard, without cracking, the secret of which the present inhabitants are ignorant of.”
[15] Temple, in his travels through upper Peru or Bolivia, in going from Potosi to Oruro, says, “I saw many Indian villages or dwellings in ruins, up even to the very tops of the mountains, attesting a former population where now all is desolate.” He makes similar remarks in another place, but it is not possible to judge, whether this desolation is owing merely to a want of population, or to an altered condition of the land.
[16] Mr. Gill said he recollected that one part, which had been cut out of the solid rock, was about forty yards wide and eight feet deep. This is sufficient to give some idea of the size of the former stream.
[17] Geographical Journal. Notice on Bolivian Cordillera, March, 1835.
Chapter XVIII
Bell mountain--Miners--Great loads carried by the Apires--Coquimbo --Earthquake--Geology--Terraces--Excursion up valley--Road to Guasco--Desert country--Valley of Copiapó--Rain and earthquakes, meteorolites--Hydrophobia--Copiapó--Excursion to Cordillera--Dry valley--Cold gales of wind--Noises from a hill--Iquique, complete desert--Salt alluvium--Nitrate of soda--Lima--Unhealthy country --Ruins of Callao, overthrown by earthquake--Elevated shells on island of San Lorenzo--Plain with embedded fragments of pottery.
NORTHERN CHILE AND PERU.
APRIL 27TH.--I set out on a journey to Coquimbo, and thence through Guasco to Copiapó, where Captain FitzRoy kindly offered to pick me up in the Beagle. The distance in a straight line along the shore northward is only 420 miles; but my mode of travelling caused me to find it a very long journey. I bought four horses and two mules, the latter carrying the cargo on alternate days. The six animals together only cost the value of twenty-five pounds sterling, and at Copiapó 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. As we rode towards the Vino del Mar, I took a farewell view of Valparaiso, and admired its picturesque appearance. For geological purposes I made a detour from the high road to the foot of the Bell mountain. We passed through a highly auriferous district to the neighbourhood of Limache, where we slept. The country is covered with much alluvium, and by the side of each little rivulet it has been washed for gold. This employment supports the inhabitants of numerous scattered hovels; but, like all those who gain by chance, they are unthrifty in their habits.
28TH.--In the afternoon we arrived at a cottage at the foot of the Bell mountain. The inhabitants were freeholders, which is not very usual in Chile. They supported themselves on the produce of a garden and a little field, but were very poor. Capital is so deficient in this part, that the people are obliged to sell their green corn while it is standing in the field, in order to buy necessaries for the ensuing year. Wheat in consequence was dearer in the very district of its production, than at Valparaiso, where the contractors live. The next day we joined the main road to Coquimbo. At night there was a very light shower of rain: this was the first drop that had 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 this year in Chile was rather later than usual. The Andes were now covered by a thick mass of snow; and they presented, in the distance, a very glorious sight.
MAY 2D.--The road continued to follow the coast, at no great distance from the sea. The few trees and bushes which are common in central Chile, decreased rapidly in numbers, and were replaced by a tall plant, something like a yucca in appearance. The surface of the country, on a small scale, was singularly broken and irregular; abrupt little peaks of rock rising out of small plains or basins. The indented coast, and 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 the part over which we rode.
3D.--Quilimari to Conchalee. The country became more and more barren. In the valleys there was scarcely sufficient water for any irrigation; and the intermediate land was quite bare, not supporting even goats. In the spring, after the winter showers, a thin pasture rapidly springs up, and cattle are then driven down from the Cordillera to graze for a short time. It is curious to observe how the seeds of the grass seem to know, as if by an acquired instinct, what quantity of rain to expect. One shower far northward at Copiapó produces as great an effect on the vegetation, as two at Guasco, and as three or four in this district. At Valparaiso a winter so dry as to injure most seriously the pasture, would at Guasco produce the most unusual abundance. Travelling northward the quantity of rain does not appear to decrease in strict proportion to the distance. At Conchalee, which is only halfway between Valparaiso and Coquimbo (being 67 miles north of the former) rain is not expected till the end of May; whereas, at Valparaiso some generally falls early in April. The annual quantity is likewise small in proportion to the lateness of the season at which it commences.
MAY 4TH.--Finding the coast-road devoid of interest of every kind, we turned inland towards the mining district of Illapel. The town of that name is very regular and pretty. Its flourishing condition depends on numerous mines, chiefly of copper, which occur in its immediate vicinity. This valley, like every other in Chile, is level, broad, and very fertile: it is bordered on each side, either by cliffs of stratified shingle, or by bare rocky mountains. Above the straight line of the uppermost irrigating ditch, all is brown as on a high road; while all below, is of as bright a green as verdigris, from the beds of alfalfa, a kind of clover.
We proceeded to Los Hornos, another mining district, where the principal hill was drilled with holes, like a great ants’ nest. The Chilian miners are in their habits a peculiar race of men. Living for weeks together in the most desolate spots, when they descend to the villages on feast-days, there is no excess or extravagance into which they do not run. They sometimes gain a considerable sum, and then, like sailors with prize-money, they try how soon they can contrive to squander it. They drink excessively, buy quantities of clothes, and in a few days return penniless to their miserable abodes, there to work harder than beasts of burden. This thoughtlessness, as with sailors, is evidently the result of a similar manner of life. Their daily food is found them, and they acquire no habitual care as to the means of subsistence: moreover, at the same moment that temptation is offered, the means of enjoying it is placed in their power. On the other hand, in Cornwall, and some other parts of England, where the system of selling part of the vein is followed, the miners, from being obliged to act for themselves, and to judge with clearness, are a singularly intelligent and well-conducted set of men.
The dress of the Chilian miner is peculiar and rather picturesque. He wears a very long shirt, of some dark-coloured baize, with a leathern apron; the whole being fastened round his waist by a brightly-coloured sash. His trousers are very broad, and his small cap of scarlet cloth is made to fit the head closely. We met a party of these miners in full costume, carrying the body of one of their companions to be buried. They marched at a very quick trot, four men supporting the corpse. One set having run as hard as they could for about two hundred yards, were relieved by four others, 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 geologise. The country was so thinly inhabited, and the track so obscure, that we often had difficulty in finding our way. On the 12th I stayed at some mines. The ore in this case was not considered particularly good, but from being abundant it was supposed the mine would sell for about thirty or forty thousand dollars (that is 6000 or 8000 pounds sterling); yet it was bought by one of the English Associations for an ounce of gold (3_l._ 8_s._). The ore is yellow pyrites, which as I have already remarked, before the arrival of the English, was not supposed to contain a particle of copper. On a scale of profits, nearly as great as in the above instance, piles of scoriæ abounding with minute globules of metallic copper were purchased; yet with these advantages, the mining associations, as is well known, contrived to lose immense sums of money. The folly of the greater number of commissioners and shareholders, amounted to infatuation:--a thousand pounds per annum given in some cases to entertain the authorities; libraries of well-bound geological books; bringing out miners for particular metals (as tin) which were soon found not to exist in the country; contracts to supply the miners with milk, in parts where there were no cows; machinery, where such could not possibly be used; and a hundred similar arrangements, bore witness to our absurdity, and to this day afford amusement to the natives. Yet there can be no doubt, that the same capital well employed in these mines would have yielded an immense return: a confidential man of business, a practical miner and assayer, would have been all that was required.
Captain Head has described the wonderful load which the “Apires,” truly beasts of burden, carry up from deep mines. I confess I thought the account exaggerated; so that I was glad to take the opportunity of weighing one of the loads, which I picked out by hazard. It required considerable exertion on my part, when standing directly over it, to lift it from the ground. The load was considered under weight when found to be 197 pounds. The apire had carried this up eighty perpendicular yards,--part of the way by a steep passage, but the greater part up notched poles, placed in a zigzag line in the shaft. According to the general regulation, the apire is not allowed to halt for breath, except the mine is six hundred feet deep. The average load is considered as rather more than 200 pounds, and I have been assured 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 load twelve times in the day; that is, 2400 pounds from eighty yards deep; and they were employed in the intervals in breaking and picking ore.
These men, excepting from accidents, are healthy, and appear cheerful. Their bodies are not very muscular. They rarely eat meat once a week, and never oftener, and then only the hard dry charqui. Although with a knowledge that the labour is voluntary, it was nevertheless quite revolting to see the state in which they reached the mouth of the mine; their bodies bent forward, leaning with their arms on the steps, their legs bowed, the muscles quivering, the perspiration streaming from their faces over their breasts, their nostrils distended, the corners of their mouth forcibly drawn back, and the expulsion of their breath most laborious. Each time, from habit, they utter an articulate cry of “ay-ay,” which ends in a sound rising from deep in the chest, but shrill like the note of a fife. After staggering to the pile of ores, they emptied the “carpacho;” in two or three seconds recovering their breath, they wiped the sweat from their brows, and apparently quite fresh descended the mine again at a quick pace. This appears to me a wonderful instance of the amount of labour which habit (for it can be nothing else), will enable a man to endure.
In the evening, talking with the mayor-domo of these mines, about the number of foreigners now scattered over the whole country, he told me that, though quite a young man, he remembers when a boy at school at Coquimbo, a holiday being given, to see the captain of an English ship, who was brought to the city to speak to the governor. He believes that nothing would have induced any boy in the school, himself included, to have gone close to the Englishman; so deeply had they been impressed with an idea of the heresy, contamination, and evil to be derived from contact with such a person. To this day they relate the atrocious actions of the bucaniers; and especially of one man, who took away the figure of the Virgin Mary, and returned the year after for that of St. Joseph, saying it was a pity the lady should not have a husband. I heard also of an old lady who, at a dinner in Coquimbo, remarked how wonderfully strange it was that she should have lived to dine in the same room with an Englishman; for she remembered as a girl, that twice, at the mere cry of “Los Ingleses,” every soul, carrying what valuables they could, had taken to the mountains.
MAY 14TH.--We reached Coquimbo, where we staid a few days. The town is remarkable for nothing but its extreme quietness. It is said to contain from 6000 to 8000 inhabitants. On the morning of the 17th it rained lightly (the first time this year) for about five hours. With this shower, the farmers, who plant corn near the sea-coast where the atmosphere is more humid, would break up the ground; with a second, put the seed in: and if a third should fall, they would reap in the spring a good harvest. It was interesting to watch the effect of this trifling amount of moisture. Twelve hours afterwards the ground appeared as dry as ever; yet after an interval of ten days, all the hills were faintly tinged with green patches; the grass being sparingly scattered in hair-like fibres a full inch in length. Before this shower every part of the surface was bare as on a high road.
In the evening, Captain FitzRoy and myself were dining with Mr. Edwards, an English resident well known for his hospitality by all who have visited Coquimbo, when a sharp earthquake happened. I heard the forecoming rumble, but from the screams of the ladies, the running of servants, and the rush of several of the gentlemen to the doorway, I could not distinguish the motion. Some of the women afterwards were crying with terror, and one person said he should not be able to sleep all night, or if he did, it would only be to dream of falling houses. The father of this gentleman had lately lost all his property at Talcahuano, and he himself only just escaped a falling roof at Valparaiso, in 1822. He mentioned a curious coincidence which then happened: he was playing at cards, when a German, one of the party, got up, and said he would never sit in a room in these countries with the door shut, since, owing to his having done so, he had nearly lost his life at Copiapó. Accordingly he opened the door; and no sooner had he done this, than he cried out, “Here it comes again!” and the famous shock commenced. The whole party escaped. The danger in an earthquake is not from the time lost in opening a door, but from the chance of its becoming jammed by the movement of the walls.
It is impossible to be much surprised at the fear which natives and old residents, though some of them known to be men of great command of mind, so generally experience during earthquakes. I think, however, this excess of panic may be partly attributed to a want of habit in governing their fears; the usual restraint of shame being here absent. Indeed, the natives do not like to see a person indifferent. I heard of two Englishmen who, sleeping in the open air, during a smart shock, knowing there was no danger, did not rise. The natives cried out indignantly, “Look at those heretics, they will not even get out of their beds!”
I spent two or three days in examining the step-formed terraces of shingle first described by Captain Basil Hall, in his work, so full of spirited descriptions, on the west coast of America. Mr. Lyell concluded from the account, that they must have been formed by the sea during the gradual rising of the land. Such is the case: on some of the steps which sweep round from within the valley, so as to front the coast, shells of existing species both lie on the surface, and are embedded in a soft calcareous stone. This bed of the most modern tertiary epoch passes downward into another, containing some living species associated with others now lost. Amongst the latter may be mentioned shells of an enormous perna and an oyster, and the teeth of a gigantic shark, closely allied to, or identical with the Carcharias Megalodon of ancient Europe; the bones of which, or of some cetaceous animal, are also present, in a silicified state, in great numbers. At Guasco, the phenomenon of the parallel terraces is very strikingly seen: no less than seven perfectly level, but unequally broad plains, ascending by steps, occur on one or both sides the valley. So remarkable is the contrast of the successive horizontal lines, corresponding on each side, with the irregular outline of the surrounding mountains, that it attracts the attention of even those who feel no interest regarding the causes, which have modelled the surface of the land. The origin of the terraces of Coquimbo is precisely the same, according to my view, with that of the plains of Patagonia; the only difference is that the plains are rather broader than the terraces, and that they front the Atlantic ocean instead of a valley,--which valley, however, was formerly occupied by an arm of the sea, but now by a fresh-water river. In every case it must be remembered, that the successive cliffs do not mark so many distinct elevations, but on the contrary, periods of comparative repose during the gradual and perhaps scarcely sensible rise of the land. In the valley of Guasco we have the record of seven such nights of rest, in the action of the subterranean powers.
MAY 21ST.--I set out in company with Don Jose Edwards to the silver-mine of Arqueros, and thence up the valley of Elque or Coquimbo. Passing through a mountainous country, we reached by nightfall the mines belonging to Mr. Edwards. I enjoyed my night’s rest here from a cause which will not be fully understood in England, namely, the absence of fleas! The rooms in Coquimbo swarm with them; but they will not live at the elevation of three or four thousand feet, even if brought there, as is constantly occurring at these mines. It can scarcely be the trifling diminution of temperature, but some other cause which is here destructive to these troublesome insects. I spent the greater part of the ensuing day in examining the mines. The veins occur abundantly scattered over several miles of hilly country; yet it is only a few years since that they were discovered by a wood-cutter. The mines are now in a bad state, though they formerly yielded about 2000 pounds in weight of silver a year. It has been said “a person with a copper-mine will gain; with silver he may gain; but with gold he is sure to lose.” This is not true: all the large Chilian fortunes have been made by mines of the more precious metals. A short time since an English physician returned to England from Copiapó, taking with him the profits of one share in a silver-mine, which amounted to about 24,000 pounds sterling. No doubt a copper-mine with care is a sure game, whereas the other is gambling, or rather taking a ticket in a lottery.
The owners lose great quantities of rich ores; for no precautions can prevent robbery. I heard of a man laying a bet with another that one of his men should rob him before his face. The ore when brought out of the mine is broken into pieces, and the useless stone thrown on one side. A couple of the miners who were thus employed, pitched, as if by accident, two fragments away at the same moment, and then cried out for a joke, “Let us see which rolls furthest.” The owner, who was standing by, bet a cigar with his friend on the race. The miner by this means watched the very point amongst the rubbish where the stone lay. In the evening he picked it up and carried it to his master, showing him a rich mass of silver ore, and saying, “This was the stone on which you won a cigar by its rolling so far.”
MAY 23D.--We followed up the fertile valley, till we reached an Hacienda, belonging to a relation of Don Jose, where we stayed the ensuing day. I then rode one day’s journey further, to see what were declared to be some petrified shells and beans. The former turned out to be so; the latter were small quartz pebbles. We passed through several small villages; and the valley was beautifully cultivated, and the whole scenery very grand. We were here near the main Cordillera; and the surrounding hills were very lofty. In all parts of northern Chile, fruit-trees produce much more abundantly at a considerable elevation near the Andes than in the lower country. The figs and grapes of this part are famous for their superiority, and are cultivated to a great extent. This valley is, perhaps, the most productive one north of Quillota: I believe it contains, including Coquimbo, 25,000 inhabitants. The next day I returned to the Hacienda, and thence, together with Don Jose, to Coquimbo.
JUNE 2D.--We set out for the valley of Guasco, following the coast-road, which was considered rather less desert than the other. Our first day’s ride was to a solitary house, called Yerba Buena, where there was pasture for our horses. The shower mentioned as having fallen a fortnight ago, only reached about halfway to Guasco; we had, therefore, in the first part of our journey a most faint tinge of green, which soon faded away. Even where brightest, it was scarcely sufficient to remind one, of the fresh turf and budding flowers during the spring of other countries. While travelling through these deserts one feels like a prisoner shut up in a gloomy courtyard, longing to see something green and to smell a moist atmosphere.
JUNE 3D.--Yerba Buena to Carizal. During the first part of the day we crossed a mountainous rocky desert; and afterwards a long deep sandy plain, scattered over with broken marine shells. There was very little water, and that little saline; hence the few streamlets were bordered on each side by white incrustations, amongst which succulent salt-loving plants grew. The whole country, from the coast to the Cordillera, is desert and uninhabited. I saw traces only of one living animal in abundance: this was a Bulimus, the shells of which were collected together in extraordinary numbers on the driest spots. In the spring, one humble little plant sends out a few leaves, and on these the snails feed. As they are seen only very early in the morning, when the ground is slightly damp from the dew, the Guasos believe they are born from it. I have observed in other places, that extremely dry and sterile districts, where the soil is calcareous, are most favourable to an extraordinary increase of land-shells. At Carizal there were a few cottages, some brackish water, and a trace of cultivation: but it was with difficulty that we purchased a little corn and straw for our horses.
4TH.--Carizal to Sauce. We continued to ride over desert plains, tenanted by large herds of guanaco. We crossed also the valley of Chaneral; which, although the most fertile one between Guasco and Coquimbo, is very narrow, and produces so little pasture, that we could not purchase any for our horses. At Sauce we found a very civil old gentleman superintending a copper-smelting furnace. As an especial favour, he allowed me to purchase at a high price, an armful of dirty straw, which was all the poor horses had for supper after their long day’s journey. Very few smelting furnaces are now at work in any part of Chile; it is found more profitable, on account of the extreme scarcity of firewood, and of the loss from the clumsy Chilian method of reduction, to ship the ore for Swansea.
The next day, we crossed some mountains to Freyrina in the valley of Guasco. During each day’s ride further northward, the vegetation became more scanty; even the great candlestick cactus was here replaced by a different and much smaller species. During the winter months, both in northern Chile and in Peru, a uniform stratum of clouds hangs (at no great height) over the Pacific. From these mountains we had a very striking view of the great white and brilliant field, which sent arms up the valleys; leaving islands and promontories in the same manner, as the sea now intersects the Chonos archipelago, or the west coast of Tierra del Fuego.
We staid two days at Freyrina. In the valley of Guasco there are four small towns. At the mouth, there is the port, a spot entirely desert, and without any water in the immediate neighbourhood. Five leagues higher up stands Freyrina, a long straggling village, with decent whitewashed houses. Again, ten leagues further up, Ballenar is situated, and above this Guasco Alto, a horticultural village, famous for its dried fruit. On a clear day, the view up the valley is very fine; the straight opening is terminated at a great distance by the outline of the snowy Cordillera; on each side an infinity of crossing lines blend together in a beautiful haze. The foreground is singular, from the number of parallel and extensive terraces; and the included strip of green valleys with its willow bushes, is contrasted on both hands by the naked hills. That the surrounding country was most barren, will be readily believed, from the circumstance of a shower of rain not having fallen during the last thirteen months. The inhabitants heard with the greatest envy of the rain in Coquimbo; from the appearance of the atmosphere they had strong expectations of equally good fortune, which, a fortnight afterwards, was realized. I was at Copiapó at the time; and there the people, with equal envy, talked of the abundant rain at Guasco. After two or three very dry years, perhaps with not more than one shower during the whole time, a rainy year generally follows; and this does more harm than even the drought. The river swells, and covers with gravel and sand the narrow strip of ground, which alone is fit for cultivation. The flood also injures the irrigating ditches. Great devastation had thus been caused three years ago.
JUNE 8TH.--We rode on to Ballenar. As the rocky mountains on each hand were concealed by clouds, the terrace-like plains gave the valley an appearance similar to that of Santa Cruz, in Patagonia. I staid the following day in the town, which is as large as Coquimbo and well built. It has only lately sprung up, and entirely owes its prosperity to some silver-mines. Ballenar takes its name from Ballenagh, in Ireland, the birthplace of the family of O’Higgins, who, under the Spanish government, were presidents and generals in Chile.
10TH.--Instead of going direct to the town of Copiapó, I determined to fall into the valley higher up and nearer the Cordillera. We rode all day over an uninteresting country; I am tired of repeating the epithets barren and sterile. These words, however, as commonly used, are comparative: I have always applied them to the plains of Patagonia; yet the vegetation there can boast of spiny bushes and some tufts of grass, which is absolute fertility to any thing that can be seen here. And here again there are not many spaces of two hundred yards square, where some little bush, cactus or lichen, may not be discovered by careful examination; and in the soil seeds lie dormant ready to spring up during the first rainy winter. In Peru real deserts occur, over wide tracts of country. In the evening we arrived at a valley, in which the bed of the streamlet was damp: following it up, we came to tolerably good water. During the night, the stream, before it is evaporated and absorbed, flows a league lower down than during the day. Sticks were plentiful for firewood, so that it was a good place of bivouac for us: but for the poor animals there was not a mouthful for them to eat.
JUNE 11TH.--We rode without stopping for twelve hours, till we reached an old smelting furnace, where there was water and firewood; but our horses again had nothing to eat, being shut up in an old courtyard. The line of road was hilly, and the distant views interesting from the splendid weather, and the varied colours of the bare mountains. It is a pity to see the sun shining constantly over so useless a country; such days should brighten a prospect of fields and gardens. The next day we reached the valley of Copiapó. I was heartily glad of it; for the whole journey was a continued source of anxiety; it was most disagreeable to hear, whilst eating our own supper, our horses gnawing the posts to which they were tied, and to have no means of relieving their hunger. To all appearance, however, the animals were quite fresh; and no one could have told that they had eaten nothing for the last fifty-five hours.
I had a letter of introduction to Mr. Bingley, who received me very kindly at the Hacienda of Potrero Seco. This estate is between twenty and thirty miles long; but it is very narrow, having generally a width of only two fields, one on each side the river. In some parts, the estate is of no width, that is to say, the land cannot be irrigated, and therefore is valueless, like the surrounding rocky desert. The small quantity of cultivated land in the whole line of valley, does not however so much depend on its inequality, or its unfitness for irrigation, as on the small supply of water. The river this year was remarkably full; in this part it reached as high as the horse’s belly, and was about fifteen yards wide, and rapid. It gradually decreases in volume till reaching the sea. This latter circumstance, however, rarely happens; and once for a period of thirty years not a drop entered the Pacific. The inhabitants watch a storm over the Cordillera with great interest: as one good fall of snow provides them with water for the ensuing year. This is of infinitely more consequence than rain in the lower country. The latter, as often as it occurs, which is about once in every two or three years, is a great advantage, because the cattle and mules can for some time afterwards find pasture in the mountains. But without snow in the Andes, desolation extends throughout the valley. It is on record, that three times nearly all the inhabitants have been obliged to emigrate to the south. This year there was plenty of water, and every man irrigated his ground as much as he chose; but it has frequently been necessary to post soldiers at the sluices, to see that each estate took only its proper allowance during so many hours in the week. The valley is said to contain 12,000 souls, but its produce is sufficient only for three months in the year; the rest of the supply being drawn from Valparaiso and the south. Before the discovery of the famous silver-mines of Chanuncillo, Copiapó was in a rapid state of decay; but now it is in a very thriving condition; and the town, which was completely overthrown by an earthquake, has been rebuilt.
The valley of Copiapó, forming a mere ribbon of green in a desert, runs in a very southerly direction; so that it is of considerable length to its origin in the Cordillera. The valleys of Guasco and Copiapó may both be considered as islands to the northward of Chile, separated by deserts instead of salt water. Beyond these, there is one other very miserable valley, called Paposo, which contains about 200 people; and then there extends the real desert of Atacama--a barrier far worse than the most turbulent ocean.
After staying a few days at Potrero Seco, I proceeded up the valley to the house of Don Benito Cruz, to whom I had a letter of introduction. I found him most hospitable; indeed it is impossible to bear too strong testimony to the kindness which travellers receive in almost every part of South America. The next day I hired some mules to take me by the ravine of Jolquera into the central Cordillera. On the second night the weather seemed to foretel a storm of snow or rain, and whilst lying in our beds we felt a trifling shock of an earthquake. The connexion between the latter phenomena and the weather has often been a disputed point: it appears to me to be one of very great interest, and not well understood. Humboldt[1] has remarked, “It would be difficult for a person, who has lived a long time in New Andalusia, or in the low regions of Peru, to deny that the season, the most to be dreaded from the frequency of earthquakes, is that of the beginning of the rains, which is, however, the time of thunderstorms. The atmosphere, and the state of the surface of the globe, seem to have an influence unknown to us, on the changes produced at great depths.” In Northern Chile, from the extreme infrequency of rain, or even of weather foreboding rain, the probability of accidental coincidences between the two phenomena necessarily becomes very small; yet the inhabitants in that part are most firmly convinced of some connexion between the state of the atmosphere and the tremblings of the ground. I was much struck by this, when mentioning to some people at Copiapó that there had been a sharp shock at Coquimbo: they immediately cried, “How fortunate! there will be plenty of pasture there this year.” To their minds an earthquake foretold rain, as surely, as rain foretold abundant pasture. Certainly it did so happen that on the very day of the earthquake, that shower of rain fell, which I have described as in ten days producing a thin sprinkling of grass.
Mr. Scrope has put forth an ingenious idea, that the period of subterranean disturbance, where the force is just on a balance with the resistance, may be determined by a sudden decrease in atmospheric pressure, which over a wide extent of country might produce a considerable effect. According to this explanation, the earthquake comes on at the given period from that state of the weather, which is generally accompanied by rain. But there is another class of phenomena, where the state of the weather evidently appears a consequence (and not the determining cause) of the earthquake. I allude to those cases, when rain falls at a period of the year, at which it is a greater prodigy than the earthquake itself: I may instance the rain after the shock of November, 1822, at Valparaiso. A person must be somewhat habituated to these climates, to understand the excessive improbability of rain falling at such seasons, except as a consequence of some law quite unconnected with the ordinary course of the weather. In the case of great volcanic eruptions, as that of Coseguina, where torrents of rain fell at a time of year most unusual for it, and “almost unprecedented in Central America,”[2] it is not difficult to understand that the volumes of vapour and clouds of ashes, might have disturbed the atmospheric equilibrium. Humboldt[3] extends this view to the case of earthquakes; but for my part, I cannot conceive it possible, that the small quantity of aeriform fluid which at such times escapes from the fissured ground, can produce such remarkable effects.
Humboldt[4] has stated that, “on the days when the earth is shaken by violent shocks, the regularity of the horary variations of the barometer is not disturbed under the tropics. I have verified this observation at Cumana, at Lima, and at Riobamba; and it is so much the more worthy of fixing the attention of natural philosophers, as at St. Domingo, at the town of Cape François, it is asserted, that a water barometer[5] was observed to sink two inches and a half immediately before the earthquake of 1770. In the same manner it is related, that, at the destruction of Oran, a druggist fled with his family, because observing accidentally a few minutes before the earthquake, the height of the mercury in his barometer, he perceived that the column sunk in an extraordinary manner. I know not whether we can give credit to this assertion.” Mr. Alison, in a letter dated Valparaiso, informs me, that just before the earthquake of November, 1822, the mercury in the tube of the barometer standing in his store, sank beneath the graduated part. The tube was a bent one; nineteen inches being exposed, and the lowest graduated part corresponded to twenty-six English inches. With this third case, and more especially considering the unquestionable fact of rain so frequently following severe earthquakes, even at the most unusual seasons, I cannot conclude otherwise, than that there exists some connexion between the subterranean and atmospheric disturbances, of which we are at present quite ignorant.
Mr. Miers,[6] in his account of the Valparaiso earthquake, November 19th, 1822, has added one more to the list of coincidences between luminous meteors and earthquakes. He says “one of very considerable size, in apparent dimensions little less than the moon, was observed in the southward, at no very great elevation. It traversed a considerable arch of the heavens, leaving behind it a long train of light; and when it disappeared, it seemed to do so from explosion--as it leaped in the same manner as those which eject meteoric stones; but in this instance no noise was heard to attend its extinction, nor was it known that any stones fell. This occurred about half-past two o’clock in the morning after the earthquake.” The earthquake itself happened at half-past ten o’clock. Mr. Miers then adds, that a friend of his “travelling on the night of the 4th of November, about a fortnight preceding the great earthquake, observed at a little past eleven o’clock in the northern sky, a large meteor of great splendour.” It is remarkable that on this same day, according to the Journal of Science,[7] Copiapó to the northward was visited by a severe earthquake, which on the fifth was followed by a much more violent shock. Molina[8] states that the first shock which announced the great earthquake at midnight on the 24th of May, 1751, “was accompanied by a ball of fire, which precipitated itself from the Andes toward the sea.” It is said in the Encyclo. Metropol.--(art. Meteorology)--“At Kingston, in Jamaica, in November 1812, a large meteor appeared a few minutes previous to some alarming and tremendous concussions.” Aguerros[9] states, on the authority of Ovalle, that in the morning of May 14th, 1633, Carelmapu (north of Chiloe) was overthrown by a bad earthquake, accompanied by a great noise; and that while the people were considering the cause, they saw over a high hill near the village a globe of fire, which appeared to threaten the last day. It rose and quickly proceeded so as to fall in the sea, disturbing the neighbouring waters. This was accompanied by a great tempest, darkness, and a hail-storm, in which pieces of ice fell as large as musket-balls.
I have copied the foregoing notices, because under any point of view, it is remarkable that in one quarter of the globe there should have been so many coincidences between phenomena of not very common occurrence. It must, however, be observed, that the coincidence is not precise; the meteors having been seen in some cases a little before, in others a little after the earthquake. From the account given in Aguerros of the waters of the sea having been disturbed, and from that by Miers of an apparent explosion, it would appear that these meteors must be the same with those that accompany the fall of meteoric stones. This perhaps alone, is an argument that they are accidental accompaniments of earthquakes; for there seems to be no rational method of explaining the origin of meteorolites on any hypothesis directly connected with our world. It is however very singular, that all their constituent parts should be of the same nature as those found on this earth,--that the metals should be chiefly those most subject to magnetic influence,--and that olivine should frequently be present; a mineral[10] which is exclusively confined to a certain class of volcanic products.
To return to the valley of Copiapó. Finding little of interest in this part of the ravine, we retraced our steps to the house of Don Benito, where I staid two days collecting fossil shells and silicified wood. The latter was present in the most extraordinary quantity: it was here that I found a cylindrical trunk, fifteen feet in circumference, projecting from the side of a hill. It was amusing to hear discussions concerning the nature of the fossil shells,--whether or not they had been thus “born by nature,”--carried on almost in the same terms as were used a century before in Europe. My geological examination of the country generally created a good deal of surprise amongst the Chilenos: it was long before they would be convinced that I was not hunting for mines. This was sometimes troublesome. I found the most ready way of explaining my employment, was to ask them how it was that they themselves were not curious concerning earthquakes and volcanoes?--why some springs were hot and others cold?--why there were mountains in Chile, and not a hill in La Plata? These bare questions at once satisfied and silenced the greater number; some, however (like a few in England who are a century behindhand), thought that all such inquiries were useless and impious; and that it was quite sufficient that God had thus made the mountains.
An order had recently been issued that all stray dogs should be killed, and we saw many carcasses lying on the high road. A great number had lately been affected with hydrophobia, and several men had been bitten, and had died in consequence. On other occasions hydrophobia has prevailed in this valley. It is remarkable thus to find so strange and dreadful a disease appearing time after time in the same isolated spot. It has been remarked that certain villages in England are in like manner much more subject to this visitation than others. Hydrophobia must be extremely rare on the eastern side of the Andes, for Azara thought it was unknown in America; and Ulloa says the same with respect to Quito. I could not hear of a case having occurred in Van Diemen’s Land, or in Australia; and Burchell says, during the five years he was at the Cape of Good Hope, he never heard of an instance of it. Webster again asserts that at the Azores, hydrophobia has never occurred; and the same observation has been made with respect to Mauritius and St. Helena.[11] In so strange a disease, some information might possibly be gained by considering the circumstances under which it originates in distant climates.
At night, a stranger arrived at the house of Don Benito, and asked permission to sleep there. He said he had been wandering about the mountains for seventeen days, having lost his way. He started from Guasco, and being accustomed to the mountains, did not expect any difficulty in following the track to Copiapó; but he soon became involved in a labyrinth of mountains, whence he could not escape. Some of his mules had fallen over precipices, and he had been in great distress. His chief difficulty arose from not knowing where to find water in the lower country, so that he was obliged to keep bordering the central ranges.
We returned down the valley, and on the 22d reached the town of Copiapó. The lower part of the valley is broad, forming a fine plain like that of Aconcagua or Quillota. The town covers a considerable space of ground, each house possessing a garden: but it is an uncomfortable place, and the dwellings are poorly furnished. Every one seems bent on the one object of making money, and then migrating as quickly as possible. All the inhabitants are more or less directly concerned with mines; and mines and ores are the sole subjects of conversation. Necessaries of all sorts are very dear; as the distance from the town to the port is eighteen leagues, and the land carriage very expensive. A fowl costs five or six shillings; meat is nearly as dear as in England; firewood, or rather sticks, are brought on donkeys from a distance of two and three days’ journey within the Cordillera; and pasturage for animals is a shilling a day: all this for South America is wonderfully exorbitant.
JUNE 26TH.--I hired a guide and eight mules to take me into the Cordillera by a different line from my last expedition. As the country was utterly desert, we took a cargo and a half of barley mixed with chopped straw. About two leagues above the town, a broad valley called the “Despoblado,” or uninhabited, branches off from the one by which we had descended. Although a valley of the grandest dimensions, and leading to a pass across the Cordillera, yet it is completely dry, excepting perhaps, for a few days during some very rainy winter. The bottom of the main valley was nearly flat, and the sides of the crumbling mountains were but little furrowed by ravines. No considerable river could ever have poured its waters over the bed of shingle, without having excavated a channel similar to those occurring in the southern valleys. I feel little doubt that it was left in the state we now see it, by the gradually retiring sea. The dry valleys mentioned by travellers in Peru, probably owe their origin to a similar agency, and not to the running streams of any former period. I observed in one place, where a ravine (which amongst any other mountains would have been called a grand valley), joined the Despoblado, that the bed of the latter, though composed merely of sand and gravel, was higher than that of its tributary. A mere rivulet of water, in the course of an hour, would have cut a channel for itself; but it was evident that centuries had passed away, and no such rivulet had drained these great valleys. It was curious to behold this machinery (if such a term may be used) for the drainage, all, with the last trifling exception, perfect, yet without any signs of activity. Every one must have remarked how mud-banks, left by the retiring tide, imitate in miniature a country with hill and dale: and here we find a model, only on a grander scale, formed by the waves of a retiring ocean. Let thousands of years replace minutes of the tidal change, and the difference between soft mud and hard rock will barely modify the result. If a shower of rain falls on the mud-bank, when left dry, it deepens the shallow lines of excavation: and so will it be with the 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 ravine, with a small well called “Agua amarga.” The water deserved its name, for besides being saline it was most offensively putrid and bitter; so that we could not force ourselves to drink either tea or maté. I suppose the distance from the river of Copiapó to this spot was at least twenty-five or thirty English miles; in the whole space there was not a single drop of water, the country almost deserving the name of desert in the strictest sense. Yet about halfway we passed the old Indian ruins near Punta Gorda, which I have already mentioned. I noticed also in front of some of the valleys, which branch off from the Despoblado, two piles of stones placed a little distance apart, and directed so as to point up the mouth of the small valley. My companions knew nothing about them, and only answered my queries by their imperturbable “quien sabe?”
JUNE 27TH.--We set out early in the morning, and by mid-day reached the ravine of Paypote, where there is a tiny rill of water, with a little vegetation, and even a few algarroba (a mimosa) trees. On this latter account a smelting furnace had formerly been built here. We found a solitary man in charge of it, whose sole employment was hunting guanacoes. At night it froze sharply; but having plenty of firewood, we kept ourselves warm.
28TH.--We continued gradually ascending as we followed the valley, which now had assumed the character of a ravine. During the day we saw several guanacoes, and the track of the closely-allied species, called the Vicuna. This latter animal is pre-eminently alpine in its habits; it seldom descends much below the limit of perpetual snow, and therefore haunts even a more lofty and sterile situation than the guanaco. The only other animal which we saw in any number was a small fox. I suppose this animal preys on the mice and other small rodents, which, as long as there is the least vegetation subsist in considerable numbers in very desert places. In Patagonia, even on the borders of the salinas, where a drop of fresh water can never be found, these little animals swarm. Next to lizards, mice appear to be able to support existence on the smallest and driest portions of the earth,--even on islets in the midst of great oceans. I believe it will be found, that several islands, which possess no other warmblooded quadruped, have small rodents peculiar to themselves.
The scenery on all sides showed desolation, brightened, and made palpable, by a clear, unclouded sky. Custom excludes the feeling of sublimity, and when this is wanting, such scenery is rather the reverse of interesting. We bivouacked at the “primera linea,” or the first line of the partition of the waters. The streams, however, on the east side do not flow to the Atlantic, but into an elevated district, in the middle of which there is a large salina, or salt-lake;--thus forming a little Caspian sea at the elevation, perhaps, of ten thousand feet. Where we slept, there were some considerable patches of snow; but they do not remain throughout the year. The winds in these lofty regions obey very regular laws: every day a fresh breeze blows up the valley, and at night, an hour or two after sunset, the air from the cold regions above descends, as through a funnel. This night it blew a gale of wind, and the temperature must have been considerably below the freezing point, for water in a short time became a block of ice. No clothes seemed to oppose any obstacle to the air; I suffered very much from the cold, so that I could not sleep, and in the morning rose with my body quite dull and benumbed.
In the Cordillera further southward, people lose their lives from snow-storms; here, this sometimes happens from another cause. My guide, when a boy of fourteen years old, was passing the Cordillera with some others, in the month of May; and while in the central parts, a furious gale of wind arose so that the men could hardly stick on their mules, and stones were flying along the ground. The day was cloudless and not a speck of snow fell, but the temperature was low. It is probable that the thermometer would not have stood very many degrees below the freezing point, but the effect on their bodies, ill protected by clothing, would be in proportion to the rapidity of the current of cold air. The gale lasted for more than a day; the men began to lose all their strength, and the mules would not move onwards. My guide’s brother tried to return, but he perished, and his body was found two years afterwards, lying by the side of his mule near the road, with the bridle still in his hand. Two other men in the party lost their fingers and toes, and out of two hundred mules and thirty cows, only fourteen of the former escaped alive. Many years ago the whole of a large party are supposed to have perished from a similar cause, but their bodies to this day have never been discovered. The union of a cloudless sky, low temperature, and a furious gale of wind, must be I should think, in all parts of the world, an unusual occurrence.
JUNE 29TH.--We gladly travelled down the valley to our former night’s lodging, and thence to near the Agua amarga. On July 1st, we reached the valley of Copiapó. The smell of the fresh clover was quite delightful, after the scentless air of the dry sterile Despoblado. Whilst staying in the town, I heard an account from several of the inhabitants of a hill in the neighbourhood, which they called “El Bramador,”--the roarer or bellower. I did not at the time pay sufficient attention to the account; but as far as I understood, the hill was covered by sand, and the noise was produced only when people, by ascending it, put the sand in motion. Upon reading an article in the Edinburgh Journal,[12] I was surprised to find the same circumstances, described in detail on the authority of Seetzen and Ehrenbergh, as the cause of the sounds, which have been heard by many travellers on Mount Sinai near the Red Sea. One person with whom I conversed had himself heard the noise; he described it as very surprising; and he distinctly stated, that although he could not understand how it was effected, yet it was necessary to set the sand rolling down the acclivity. I can vouch for the quantity of loose sand lying on the bare granite mountains in this neighbourhood. From the position of the hill, and from the account which I received, the phenomenon certainly does not appear to have any direct connexion with volcanic causes. I may remark that a horse walking over dry and coarse sand, causes a peculiar chirping noise from the friction of the particles: a fact which I have several times noticed on the coast of Brazil.
Three days afterwards I heard of the Beagle’s arrival at the port, which is distant eighteen leagues. There is very little land cultivated below the town. The wide expanse of the valley supports a wretched wiry grass, which even the donkeys can hardly eat. This poorness of the vegetation is owing to the quantity of saline matter with which the soil is impregnated. Layers of sulphate and carbonate of soda, even several inches thick, occur in some parts. The port consists of an assemblage of miserable little hovels, situated at the foot of some sterile plains and hills. At present, from the river reaching the sea, the inhabitants enjoy the advantage of having fresh water within a mile and a half. On the beach there were large piles of merchandise, and the little place had an air of activity. In the evening I gave my adios with a hearty good will, to my companion Mariano Gonzales, with whom I had ridden so many leagues in Chile. The next morning the Beagle sailed for Iquique, lat. 20° 12′ on the coast of Peru.
* * * * *
JULY 12TH.--We anchored in the port of Iquique. The town contains about a thousand inhabitants, and stands on a little plain of sand at the foot of a great wall of rock, 2000 feet in height, which here forms the coast. The whole is utterly desert. A light shower of rain falls only once in very many years; and hence the ravines are filled with detritus, and the mountain sides covered by piles of fine white sand, even a thousand feet high. During this season of the year, a heavy bank of clouds extending parallel to the ocean, seldom rises above the wall of rocks on the coast. The aspect of the place was most gloomy; the little port, with its few vessels, and small group of wretched houses, seemed overwhelmed and out of all proportion with the rest of the scene.
The inhabitants live like persons on board a ship; every necessary coming from a distance. Water is brought in boats from Pisagua, about forty miles to the northward and is sold at the rate of nine reals (4_s._ 6_d._) an eighteen-gallon cask: I bought a wine-bottle full for threepence. In like manner firewood, and of course every article of food, is imported. Very few animals can be maintained in such a place: on the ensuing morning I hired, with difficulty at the price of four pounds sterling, two mules and a guide to take me to the saltpetre works. These are the present support of Iquique. During one year the value of one hundred thousand pounds sterling was exported to France and England. This saltpetre does not properly deserve to be so called; for it consists of nitrate of soda, and not of potash, and is therefore of much less value. It is said to be principally used in the manufacture of nitric acid. Owing to its deliquescent property it will not serve for gunpowder. Formerly there were two exceedingly rich silver-mines in this neighbourhood, but they now produce very little.
Our arrival in the offing caused some little apprehension. Peru was in a state of anarchy; and each party having demanded a contribution, the poor town of Iquique was in tribulation, thinking the evil hour was come. The people had also their domestic troubles; a short time before, three French carpenters had broken open the two churches, during the same night, 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 capital of this province, is 200 leagues distant: the government there thought it a pity to punish such useful workmen, who could make all sorts of furniture; and accordingly liberated them. Things being in this state, the churches were again broken open, but the plate this time was not recovered. The inhabitants became dreadfully enraged, and declaring that none but heretics would thus “eat God Almighty,” proceeded to torture some Englishmen, with the intention of afterwards shooting them. At last the authorities interfered, and peace was established.
JULY 13TH.--In the morning I started for the saltpetre works, a distance of fourteen leagues. Having ascended the steep coast mountains by a zigzag sandy track, we soon came in view of the mines of Guantajaya and St. Rosa. These two small villages are placed at the very mouths of the mines. If the town of Iquique appeared desolate, these, perched up on hills, had a still more unnatural aspect. We did not reach the saltpetre works till after sunset, having ridden all day across an undulating country, a complete and utter desert. The road was strewed with the bones and dried skins of the many beasts of burden, which had perished on it from fatigue. Excepting the Vultur aura, which preys on the carcasses, I saw neither bird, quadruped, reptile, or insect. On the coast mountains, at the elevation of about 2000 feet, where during this season the clouds generally hang, a very few cacti were growing in the clefts of rock; and the loose sand was strewed over with a simple lichen, which lies on the surface quite unattached. This plant belongs to the genus Cladonia, and somewhat resembles the reindeer lichen. In some parts it was in sufficient quantity to tinge the sand, as seen from a distance, of a pale yellowish colour. Further inland, during the whole ride of fourteen leagues, I saw only one other vegetable production, and that was a most minute yellow lichen, growing on the bones of the dead mules. This was the first true desert which I had seen: the effect on me was not impressive; but I believe this was owing to my having become gradually accustomed to such scenes, as I rode northward from Valparaiso, through Coquimbo to Copiapó. The appearance of the country was remarkable, from being covered by a thick crust of common salt, and of a saliferous sandstone, which properly deserves the name of alluvium. The salt is white, very hard, and compact. It occurs in water-worn nodules, which project from the agglutinated sand or soft sandstone. The appearance of this superficial mass, very closely resembled that of a country after snow, before the last dirty patches have thawed. The rocks of which the mountains are composed are saliferous; and I imagine, the very small quantity of rain that falls, is sufficient only to wash the salt from the higher strata, and that afterwards it concretes in nodules and patches, in the sandy soil of the valleys. Whatever its origin may be, the existence of a crust of a soluble substance over the whole face of the country, shows how extraordinarily dry the climate must have been for a period long antecedent.
At night I slept at the house of the owner of one of the saltpetre mines. The country is here equally unproductive with that near the coast; but water, though having rather a bitter and brackish taste, can be procured by digging. The well at this house was thirty-six yards deep. As scarcely any rain falls, it is evident the water is not derived from that source; indeed if it were, it could not fail to be as salt as brine, for the whole surrounding country is incrusted with various saline substances. We must therefore conclude that it percolates from some distant and more humid region, probably the mountains of the higher Cordillera. In that direction there are a few small villages, such as Tarapaca, where the inhabitants, having more water, are enabled to irrigate some little land, and produce hay, on which the mules and asses employed in carrying the saltpetre are fed.
The nitrate of soda is sold at the ship’s side at fourteen shillings per hundred pounds. The chief expense is the transport to the sea-coast. The mine itself consists of a stratum between two and three feet thick, of the hard and nearly pure salt, lying close beneath the surface. The stratum follows the margin of a grand basin or plain, which manifestly must once have been either a lake or inland sea: the elevation at present is 3300 feet above the level of the Pacific. On our return we made a detour by the mines of Guantajaya. The village consists solely of the houses of the miners, and the place is utterly destitute of every necessary;--even water being brought thirty miles on the backs of animals. At present the mines yield little; though formerly they were very productive. One has a depth of four hundred yards, and out of it masses of silver were taken so pure, that it was only required to melt them in order to run them into bars. We reached Iquique after sunset: I went on board, and then the Beagle weighed for Lima. I was very glad to have seen this place, as I understand it is a good type of the greater part of the coast of Peru.
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JULY 19TH.--We anchored in the bay of Callao, the seaport of Lima, the capital of Peru. We staid here six weeks, but from the troubled state of public affairs, I saw very little of the country. During our whole visit the climate was far from being so delightful as it is generally represented. A dull heavy bank of clouds constantly hung over the land, so that during the first sixteen days I had only one view of the Cordillera behind Lima. These mountains, seen in stages, one above the other, through openings in the clouds, had a very grand appearance. It has almost become a proverb, that rain never falls in the lower part of Peru. Yet this can hardly be considered correct; for during almost every day of our visit there was a thick drizzling mist, which was sufficient to make the streets muddy and one’s clothes damp: this the people are pleased to call Peruvian dew. That much rain does not fall is very certain, for the houses are covered only with flat roofs made of hardened mud; and on the mole, ship-loads of wheat were piled up, and are thus left for weeks together without any shelter.
I cannot say I liked the very little I saw of Peru: in summer, however, it is said that the climate is much pleasanter. In all seasons, both inhabitants and foreigners suffer from severe attacks of ague. This disease is common on the whole coast of Peru, but is unknown in the interior. The attacks of illness which arise from miasma never fail to appear most mysterious. So difficult is it to judge from the aspect of a country, whether or not it is healthy, that if a person had been told to choose within the tropics a situation appearing favourable for health, very probably he would have named this coast. The plain round the outskirts of Callao is sparingly covered with a coarse grass, and in some parts there are a few stagnant, though very small, pools of water. The miasma, in all probability, arises from these: for the town of Arica was similarly circumstanced, and its healthiness was much improved by the drainage of the water. The miasma is not always produced by a luxuriant vegetation with an ardent climate; for many parts of Brazil, even where there are marshes and a rank vegetation, are much more healthy than this sterile coast of Peru. The densest forests in a temperate climate, as in Chiloe, do not seem in the slightest degree to affect the healthy condition of the atmosphere.
The island of St. Jago, at the Cape de Verds, offers another strongly-marked instance of a country which any one would have expected to find most healthy, being very much the contrary. I have described the bare and open plains as supporting, during a few weeks after the rainy season, a thin vegetation, which directly withers away and dries up: at that period the air appears to become poisonous; both natives and foreigners often becoming affected with violent fevers. On the other hand, the Galapagos Archipelago, in the Pacific, with a similar soil, and periodically subject to the same process of vegetation, is perfectly healthy. Humboldt has observed, that, “under the torrid zone, the smallest marshes are the most dangerous, being surrounded, as at Vera Cruz and Carthagena, with an arid and sandy soil, which raises the temperature of the ambient air.”[13] I must observe, however, that on the coast of Peru the temperature is not hot to any excessive degree; and perhaps in consequence, the intermittent fevers are not of the most malignant order.
In all unhealthy countries the greatest risk is run by sleeping on shore. Is this owing to the state of the body during sleep, or to a greater abundance of miasma at such times? It appears certain that those who stay on board a vessel, though anchored at only a short distance from the coast, generally suffer less than those actually on shore. On the other hand, I have heard of one remarkable case where a fever broke out among the crew of a man-of-war some hundred miles off the coast of Africa, at the very same time that one of those fearful periods of death commenced at Sierra Leone. It maybe remarked, that of the most destructive diseases, which bear an evident relation to climate, and which (as if by the addition of some direct poison) affect both natives and strangers, nearly all originate in the hotter regions of the earth. As geological induction shows that the climate, during the periods antecedent to the present, had an extratropical character, so, in all probability, there would be an extra tendency to disease, and we can therefore see that the introduction of man being, as generally supposed, recent, is an adaptation to the existing condition of the world.
No state in South America, since the declaration of independence, has suffered more from anarchy than Peru. At the time of our visit there were four chiefs in arms contending for supremacy in the government: if one succeeded in becoming for a time very powerful, the others coalesced against him; but no sooner were they victorious, than they were again disunited, and hostile to each other. The other day, at the Anniversary of the Independence, high mass was performed, the President partaking of the sacrament: during the Te Deum laudamus, instead of each regiment displaying the Peruvian flag, a black one with death’s head was unfurled. Imagine a government under which such a scene could be ordered, on such an occasion, to be typical of their determination of fighting to the death! This state of affairs happened at a time very unfortunately for me, as I was precluded from taking any excursions much beyond the limits of the towns. The barren island of S. Lorenzo, which forms the harbour, was nearly the only place where one could walk securely. The upper part, which is about 1200 feet in height, during this season of the year, (winter) comes within the lower limit of the clouds; and in consequence of this, an abundant cryptogamic vegetation, and a few flowers, covered the summit. On the hills near Lima, at an elevation but little greater, the ground was carpeted with moss, and beds of beautiful yellow lilies, called Amancaes. This indicates a very much greater degree of humidity than at a corresponding altitude at Iquique. Travelling northward, the climate becomes damper, till on the banks of the Guyaquil, nearly under the equator, we find the most luxuriant forests. The change, however, from the sterile coast of Peru to that fertile land, is described as taking place rather abruptly, in the latitude of Cape Blanco, two degrees south of Guyaquil.
Callao is a filthy, ill-built, small seaport. The inhabitants, both there and at Lima, present every imaginable shade of mixture, between European, Negro, and Indian blood. They appear a depraved, drunken set of people. The atmosphere was loaded with foul smells, and that peculiar one, which may be perceived in almost every town within the tropics, was here very strong. The fortress, which withstood Lord Cochrane’s long siege, has an imposing appearance. But the President, during our stay, sold the brass guns, and proceeded to dismantle parts of it. The reason assigned was, that he had not an officer to whom he could trust so important a charge. He himself had good reasons for knowing this, as he had obtained the presidentship by rebelling while in charge of this same fortress. After we left South America, he paid the penalty in the usual way, by being conquered, taken prisoner, and shot.
Lima stands on a plain in a valley, formed during the gradual retreat of the sea. It is distant seven miles from Callao, and is elevated 500 feet above it; but from the slope being very gradual, the road appears absolutely level; so that when at Lima it is difficult to believe one has ascended some hundred feet. Humboldt has remarked on this singularly deceptive case. Steep, barren hills rise like islands from the plain, which is divided, by straight mud-walls, into large green fields. In these scarcely a tree grows excepting a few willows; and the presence of an occasional clump of bananas and of oranges, alone reminded one that the landscape of a country in latitude 12° might have boasted of a far more splendid vegetation. The city of Lima is now in a wretched state of decay: the streets are nearly unpaved, and heaps of filth are piled up in all directions; where the black gallinazos, tame as poultry, pick up bits of carrion. The houses have generally an upper story, built, on account of the earthquakes, of plastered woodwork; but some of the old ones, which are now used by several families, are immensely large, and would rival in suites of apartments the most magnificent in any place. Lima, the City of the Kings, must formerly have been a splendid town. The extraordinary number of churches, even at the present day, gives it a peculiar and striking character, especially when viewed from a short distance.
One day I went out with some merchants to hunt in the immediate vicinity of the city. Our sport was very poor; but I had an opportunity of seeing the ruins of one of the ancient Indian villages, with its hill-like mound in the centre. The remains of houses, enclosures, irrigating streams, and burial mounds, scattered over this plain, cannot fail to give one a high idea of the condition and number of the ancient population. When their earthenware, woollen clothes, utensils of elegant forms cut out of the hardest rocks, tools of copper, ornaments of precious stones, palaces and hydraulic works, are considered, it is impossible not to respect the considerable advance made by them in the arts of civilization. The burial mounds, called Huacas, are really stupendous; although in some places it is only a natural hill which appears to have been 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 its accompanying wave. The destruction must have been more complete even than at Concepcion. Quantities of shingle almost conceal the foundations of the walls, and vast masses of brickwork appear to have been whirled about by the retiring waves like pebbles. It has been stated that the land subsided during this memorable shock: I could not discover any proof of this; yet it seems far from improbable, for the form of the coast must certainly have undergone some change since the foundation of the old town; as no people in their senses would willingly have chosen for their building-place the narrow spit of shingle on which the ruins now stand. On the island of San Lorenzo, there are very satisfactory proofs of elevation within the recent period: this of course would not contravene the belief of a small subsidence, if any signs of such movement could be discovered. The side of the mountain fronting the bay on that island, is worn into three obscure terraces, which are covered by masses of shells many hundred tons in weight, of species now existing on the beach. Several of the univalves had serpulæ and small balani attached on their insides; proving that they must have remained some time, after the animal had died, at the bottom of the sea. In such cases we may feel sure that they had not been carried up, as has sometimes been believed, either by birds or men for food.
When examining the beds of shells, which have been raised above the level of the sea, on other parts of the coast, I often felt curious to trace their final disappearance from decay. On the island of San Lorenzo, this could be done in the most satisfactory manner: at a small height the shells were quite perfect; on a terrace, eighty-five feet above the sea, they were partially decomposed and coated by a soft scaly substance; at double this altitude a thin layer of calcareous powder beneath the soil, without a trace of organic structure, was all that could be discovered. This highly curious and satisfactory gradation of change, it is evident could be traced only under the peculiar conditions of this climate, where rain never falls so as to wash away the particles of shells in their last stage of decomposition. I was much interested by finding embedded, together with pieces of sea-weed in the mass of shells, in the eighty-five foot bed, a bit of cotton-thread, plaited rush, and the head of a stalk of Indian corn. This fact, coupled with another, which will be mentioned, proves I think the amount of eighty-five feet elevation since man inhabited this part of Peru. On the coast of Patagonia and La Plata, where perhaps the movements have been slower, there is evidence, as we have seen, that several mammalia have become extinct during a smaller change of level. At Valparaiso, where there exist abundant proofs of recent elevation to a greater altitude than in this part of Peru, I can show that the greatest possible change during the last 220 years, has not exceeded the small measure of fifteen feet.
On the mainland in front of San Lorenzo, near Bellavista, there is an extensive and level plain, at the height of about a hundred feet. The section on the coast shows that the lower part consists of alternating layers of sand and impure clay, together with some gravel; and the surface, to the depth of from three to six feet, of a reddish loam, containing a few scattered sea-shells, and numerous small fragments of coarse red earthenware. At first I was inclined to believe that this superficial bed must have been deposited beneath the sea; but I afterwards found in one spot, that it covered an artificial floor of round stones. The conclusion which then seemed most probable was, that at a period when the land stood at a less height, there was a plain very similar to the one now surrounding Callao, which being protected by a shingle beach, is raised but very little above the level of the sea. On this plain, with its clay beds, I imagine the Indians manufactured their earthen vessels; and that, during some violent earthquake, the sea broke over the beach and converted the plain into a temporary lake, as happened in 1713[14] around Callao. The water would then deposit mud, containing fragments of pottery from the kilns, and shells from the sea. This bed with fossil earthenware occurring at about the same altitude with the terrace on San Lorenzo, confirms the supposed amount of elevation within the human period.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Personal Narrative, vol. iv., p. 11. In the fourth chapter of the second volume, p. 217, Humboldt, however, appears to think that such connexion is fanciful.
[2] Caldcleugh. Philosoph. Transact. 1835.
[3] Personal Narrative, vol. ii., p. 219.
[4] Ibid., p. 217.
[5] Courrejolles, in the Journal de Phys., tome liv., p. 106. This depression answers only to two lines of mercury. The barometer remained motionless at Pignerol, in April, 1808.--(Ibid., t. lxvii., p. 292.) [I may add that the earthquake alluded to by Courrejolles at p. 106, was accompanied by a “très-violent coup de vent;” which explains the fall of his water barometer. More lately, Mr. Williams, in his Narrative of Missionary Enterprise (p. 442), has given an account of a hurricane which devastated the Austral islands (S. W. of the Society Archipelago), and which at the Navigator Islands was accompanied by an earthquake.--C. D.]
[6] Miers’s Travels, vol. i., p. 395.
[7] Vol. xvii.
[8] Molina (Spanish edition), vol. i., p. 33. At six o’clock in the evening of the 26th of May of the same year, that is about thirty-seven hours after the Concepcion earthquake, two meteoric stones fell near Agram in Croatia. They were seen coming from the west, which is in an opposite direction to the course of the Chilian meteor. This near coincidence of time was of course only accidental.
[9] Descripcion Historial de Chiloe, p. 104. “Vieron sobre un monte o cerro alto inmediato al pueblo, un globo de fuego que parecía amenezada la ultima desgracia. Elevó se y fué luego a caer al mar, alterando inmediatamente sus aguas.”
[10] Olivine is known to accompany basaltic in opposition to clinkstone rocks. Gmelin says, “Natron and potash characterize clinkstone; iron and magnesia, basalt.” “Magnesia and iron show a great tendency to enter into combination with each other.” These two latter substances are main constituents of meteoric stones, while the alkalies are generally present in very small quantities. Gmelin on Clinkstone, Edinburgh New Philosoph. Journal, April, 1829.
[11] Azara’s Travels, vol. i., p. 381.--Ulloa’s Voyage, vol. ii., p. 28.--Burchell’s Travels in Southern Africa, vol. ii., p. 524.--Webster’s Description of the Azores, p. 124.--Voyage à l’Isle de France par un Officier du Roi, tome i., p. 248.--Description of St. Helena, p. 123.
[12] Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, January, 1830, p. 74. Also, another article in the number for April in the same year, p. 258. See also Daubeny on Volcanoes, p. 438.
[13] Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, vol. iv., p. 199.
[14] Frezier’s Voyage.