256 CENTKAL CHILE. [chap, xn 



? 



This must he. an old name, for it is very many years since a gua- 

 naco 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. Tliey are 

 excessively numerous in some parts of Chile, and valuable on ac- 

 count of a sort of treacle made from the sap. On one estate neai 

 Petorca they tried to count them, but failed, after having num- 

 bered 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 : it is, however, necessary that a thin slice 

 should be shaved off from that end every morning, so as to ex- 

 pose a fresli surface. A good tree will give ninety gallons, and 

 all this must have been contained in the vessels of the apparently 

 dry trunk. It is said that the sap flows much more quickly on 

 those days when the sun is powerful ; and likewise, that it is ab- 

 solutely necessary to take care, in cutting dow^n the tree, that it 

 should fall with its head upwards on the side of the hill ; for if it 

 falls down the slope, scarcely any sap will flow ; although in that 

 case one would have thought that the action would have been 

 aided, instead of checked, by the force of gravity. The sap is 

 concentrated by boiling, and is then called treacle, which it very 

 much resembles in taste. 



We unsaddled our horses near the spring, and prepared to 

 pass the night. The evening was fine, and the atmosphere so 

 clear, that the masts of the vessels at anchor in the bay of Val- 

 paraiso, although no less than twenty-six geographical miles 

 distant, could be distinguished clearly as little black streaks. A 

 ship doubling the point under sail, appeared as a blight v/hite 

 speck. Anson expresses much surprise, in his voyage, at the 

 distance at which his vessels were discovered from the coast ; but 

 he did not sufficiently allow for the height of the land, and the 

 great transparency of the air. 



The setting of ihe sun was glorious ; the valleys being black, 



