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Show 428 NOR'I'UERK CHILE. June, 1835. harm than even the drought. The river swells, and covers "vith 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 8'l'H.-We rode on to Ballenar. As the rocky mountains on each hand were concealed hy 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. lOTH.-lnstead of going direct to the town of Copiap6, 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, June, 1835. GUASCO TO COPIAPO. 429 till we reached an old smelting furnace, where there was water and firewood; but our horses again had nothin()' to eat being shut up in an old courtyard. The line of r~ad wa: hilly, and the dista~t views interesting from the splendid weather, and the vaned 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. ga~dens. The n~xt day we reached the valley of Cop1apo. . I was hearuly glad of it; for the whole journey was a contmued 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 ~ater. 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 ?ro~des them with water for the ensuing year. This is of mfimtely 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 |