VALPARAISO. 547 



produced, after a long delay, some hot water slightly tinged 

 brown by about half a dozen coffee beans. 



The hair-cutter had turned a rill from the river over the dry 

 and dusty soil near by, and grass was beginning to spring. He 

 insisted on riding farther with me to an inn at the bottom of the 

 final steep climb to the summit of the Pass, and having slept a 

 night and waited at the inn till my return from the summit, 

 accompanied me back to his house. He ceased not to talk to me 

 all the time, and though I was becoming comparatively proficient 

 in the language, I got tired of him at last, and treacherously 

 gave him the slip whilst he rode off into a side valley to find 

 some wonderful plant for me of winch he only knew the 

 locality. 



It pleased me very much to find amongst the Alpine vege- 

 tation, at 7,500 feet elevation, a plant of the genus Azorella 

 (A. trifoliata), a genus with which I had become so familiar in 

 the far-off Kerguelen's Land.* A plant, Chevreulia Thouarsii, 

 which occurs in the isolated and distant Tristan da Cunha, is 

 common all over Chile ; the species found on the continent being- 

 identical with that of the island. 



Near the summit of the Pass the slopes are almost absolutely 

 barren. 



The line of the track is strewn with the skeletons of mules 

 and cattle which have perished on the journey. Very large 

 numbers of cattle are constantly driven over the Pass, though it 

 is 12,500 feet in height, from the Argentine Eepublic, and the 

 Chilians, in exchange for this meat, supply corn to the Argen- 

 tines, which, however, of course goes round by sea. 



The cattle can find little or no food on the journey over the 

 Pass, and many die on the way ; many others are obliged to be 

 killed, and men occupying houses on the route buy the disabled 

 ones, and make a profit by drying the meat. 



At one spot an unfortunate mule had fallen from a zigzag path 

 down a steep slope, and lay at the bottom with one of its legs 

 broken, and the bone protruding for six inches. My guide went 

 up and kicked the poor beast, which was lying down, till it got 

 up on three legs, but only to see if it was of any good, and he 



* See page 166. 



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