92 FLIGHT OF BIRDS. 
tion make excursions to Pencu, to examine, as 
a curiosity, a water-mill established there by 
some foreigner. We found it so out of repair 
as to be unserviceable, and the owner com- 
plained that he could find no one capable of 
mending it. ‘The wheat is here ground to flour 
by beating it in stone pots with heavy wooden 
clubs; which may serve to give some idea of 
the progress the Chilians have made in the 
useful arts. 
Mendiburu possessed an estate near Pencu, 
where we partook of a pleasant meal under the 
shade of fruit-trees. After dinner the whole 
company went shooting, and in the course of a 
few hours had killed several hundred water- 
birds of various kinds. The flocks in which 
they fly are sometimes so numerous as_ to 
darken the air. During our absence such a 
one was descried from the ship; it appeared a 
solid mass of about ten fathoms broad, and its 
flight lasted full three hours. 
The repairs of our ship had gone on quickly, 
and the time approached for our leaving Chili, 
when we perceived that the friendliness and civi- 
lity we had hitherto experienced from the inha- 
