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Show 384 PASSAGE OF CORDILLERA. March, 1835. 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 travel-ling 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.* Yet with what delicate slim limbs, without any proportional bulk of muscle, these animals support so great a burden! The • 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. March, 1835. MOUNTAIN 'l'ORRENTS. 385 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 outmaste!" ed 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 rat.her 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 VOL. III. 2 C |
