With No Particular
Zeal For Religion, No Business Or Pursuit, How Completely
Must This Man's Life Be Wasted!
The next day, on
our return, we met seven very wild-looking Indians, of whom
some were caciques that had just received from the Chilian
government their yearly small stipend for having 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 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!" 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 7000 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 be changed
into a heap of mould.
February 20th. - This 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 very sensible.
The undulations appeared to my companion and myself to
come from due east, whilst others thought they proceeded
from south-west: this shows how difficult it sometimes is to
perceive the directions of the 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 our oldest associations:
the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath
our feet like a thin crust over a fluid; - one second of time
has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which
hours of reflection would not have produced. In the forest,
as a breeze moved the trees, I felt only the earth tremble, but
saw no other effect. Captain Fitz Roy and some officers
were at the town during the shock, and there the scene was
more striking; for although the houses, from being built of
wood, did not fall, they were violently shaken, and the boards
creaked and rattled together. The people rushed out of
doors in the greatest alarm. It is these accompaniments that
create that perfect horror of earthquakes, experienced by all
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 great waves, to high-
water mark, and then as quickly returned to its proper level;
this was also evident by the line of wet sand. The 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 many weaker shocks, which seemed to produce in the
harbour the most complicated currents, and some of great
strength.
March 4th. - We entered the harbour of Concepcion. While
the ship was beating up to the anchorage, I landed on the
island of Quiriquina. The mayor-domo of the estate quickly
rode down to tell me the terrible news of the great earthquake
of the 20th: - "That not a house in Concepcion or
Talcahuano (the port) was standing; that seventy villages
were destroyed; and that a great wave had almost washed
away the ruins of Talcahuano." Of this latter statement I
soon saw abundant proofs - the whole coast being strewed
over with timber and furniture as if a thousand ships had
been wrecked.
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