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Show 4:36 ~OH!J'IIEIDi ClllLB. June, 1835. ready way of explaining my employment, was to ask them how it was that they themselves were not curious concerning earthquakes and volcanoes ?--why some springs were hot and others cold ?-why there were mountains in Chile, and not a hill in La Plata? These bare questions at once satisfied and silenced the greater number; some, however (like a few in England who are a century behindhand), thought that all such inquiries were useless and impious; and that it was quite sufficient that God had thus made the mountains. An order had recently been issued that all stray dogs should be killed, and we saw many carcasses lying on the high road. A great number had lately been affected with hydrophobia, and several men had been bitten, and had died in consequence. On other occasions hydrophobia has prevailed in this valley. It is remarkable thus to find so strange and dreadful a disease appearing time after time in the same isolated spot. It has been remarked that certain villages in England are in like manner much more subject to this visitation than others. Hydrophobia must be extremely rare on the eastern side of the Andes, for Azara thought it was unknown in America; and Ulloa says the same with respect to Quito. I cvuld not hear of a case having occurred in Van Diemen's Land, or in Australia; and Burchell says, during the five years he was at the Cape of Good Hope, he never heard of an instance of it. Webster again asserts .that at the Azores, hydrophobia has never occurred; and the same observation has been made with respect to Mauritius and St. Helena.* In so strange a disease, some information might possibly be gained by considering the circumstances under which it originates in distant climates. At night, a stranger arrived at the house of Don Benito, and asked permission to sleep there. He said he had been 'II: Azara's Travels, vol. i., p. 381.-Ulloa's Voyage, vol. ii., p. 28.Burchdl's Travels in Southern Africa, vol. ii., p. 524.-Webster's Description of the Azores, p. 124.-Voyage a l'Isle de France pat· un Officier du Roi, tome i., p. 248.--Description of St. Helena, p. 123. June, 1835. wande.ring about the mountains for seventeen days, having lost Ius way. He started from Guasco, and being accustomed. to the mountains, did not expect any difficulty in followmg the track to Copiapo; but he soon became involved in a labyrinth of mountains, whence he could not escape. Some of his mu~es had fallen over precipices, and he had been in great distress. His chief difficulty arose from not knowing w.here to find water in the lower country, so that he was obhged to keep bordering the central ranges. We returned down the valley, and on the 22d reached the town of Copiap6. The lower part of the valley is broad, forming a fine plain like that of Aconcagua or Quillota. The town covers a considerable space of ground, each house possessing a garden : but it is an uncomfortable place and the dwellings are poorly furnished. Every one seems' bent on the one object of making money, and then migrating as quickly as possible. All the inhabitants are more or less directly concerned with mines ; and mines and ores are the the sole subjects of conversation. Necessaries of all sorts a:e very dear ; as the distance from the town to the port is e1ghteen leagues, and the land carriage very expensive. A fowl costs five or six shillings ; meat is nearly as dear as in England ; firewood, or rather sticks, are brought on do~1keys from a distance of two and three days' journey within the Cordillera; and pasturage for animals is a shilling a day: all this for South America is wonderfully exorbitant. JUNE 26TH.-I hired a guide and eiO'ht mules to take me • 0 I~to the Cordillera by a different line from my last expedi-tion. As the country was utterly desert, we took a cargo and a half of barley mixed with chopped straw. About two leagues above the town, a broad valley called the " Despoblado," or uninhabited, branches off from the one by which ~e had descended. Although a valley of the grandest dimenSIOns, and leading to a pass across the Cordillera, yet it is completely dry, excepting perhaps, for a few days during some very rainy winter. rrhe bottom of the main yalley was nearly flat, and the sides of the crumbling mountains were |