Where
Would One Of The Lower Or Higher 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 a
cloudless sky, and knew no trouble. My companions were
Mariano Gonzales, who had formerly accompanied me in
Chile, 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 wherever she goes, the mules, like good children, follow
her. The affection of these animals for their madrinas saves
infinite trouble. If several large troops are turned into one
field to graze, in the morning the muleteers have only to lead
the madrinas a little apart, and tinkle their bells; although
there may be two or three hundred together, each mule
immediately knows the bell of its own madrina, and comes to
her. 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 a madrina. In a troop each
animal carries on a level road, a cargo weighing 416 pounds
(more than 29 stone), but in a mountainous country 100
pounds less; 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, powers of muscular endurance,
and length of life, than either of its parents, seems to
indicate that art has here outdone 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 main valleys
in the Cordillera are characterized by having, on both sides, a
fringe or terrace of shingle and sand, rudely stratified, and
generally of considerable thickness. These fringes evidently
once extended across the valleys and were united; and the
bottoms of the valleys in northern Chile, where there are no
streams, are thus smoothly filled up.
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