Chile Must Formerly Have Resembled
The Latter Country In The Configuration Of Its Land And Water.
The Resemblance Was Occasionally Shown Strikingly When A
Level Fog-Bank Covered, As With A Mantle, All The Lower Parts
Of The Country:
The white vapour curling into the ravines,
beautifully represented little coves and bays; and here and
there a solitary hillock peeping up, showed that it had formerly
stood there as an islet.
The contrast of these flat
valleys and basins with the irregular mountains, gave the
scenery a character which to me was new and very interesting.
From the natural slope to seaward of these plains, they
are very easily irrigated, and in consequence singularly
fertile. Without this process the land would produce scarcely
anything, for during the whole summer the sky is cloudless.
The mountains and hills are dotted over with bushes and
low trees, and excepting these the vegetation is very scanty.
Each landowner in the valley possesses a certain portion of
hill-country, where his half-wild cattle, in considerable
numbers, manage to find sufficient pasture. Once every year
there is a grand "rodeo," when all the cattle are driven down,
counted, and marked, and a certain number separated to be
fattened in the irrigated fields. Wheat is extensively
cultivated, and a good deal of Indian corn: a kind of bean is,
however, the staple article of food for the common labourers.
The orchards produce an overflowing abundance of peaches
figs, and grapes. With all these advantages, the inhabitants
of the country ought to be much more prosperous than they
are.
16th. - The mayor-domo of the Hacienda was good enough
to give me a guide and fresh horses; and in the morning we
set out to ascend the Campana, or Bell Mountain, which is
6400 feet high. The paths were very bad, but both the
geology and scenery amply repaid the trouble. We reached
by the evening, a spring called the Agua del Guanaco, which
is situated at a great height. This must be an old name,
for it is very many years since a guanaco drank its waters.
During the ascent I noticed that nothing but bushes grew
on the northern slope, whilst on the southern slope there was
a bamboo about fifteen feet high. In a few places there were
palms, and I was surprised to see one at an elevation of at
least 4500 feet. These palms are, for their family, ugly trees.
Their stem is very large, and of a curious form, being thicker
in the middle than at the base or top. They are excessively
numerous in some parts of Chile, and valuable on account of
a sort of treacle made from the sap. On one estate near
Petorca they tried to count them, but failed, after having
numbered several hundred thousand. Every year in the early
spring, in August, very many are cut down, and when the
trunk is lying on the ground, the crown of leaves is lopped
off. The sap then immediately begins to flow from the upper
end, and continues so doing for some months:
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