146 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



nearly three times the average — more, indeed, than 

 three times the average — of ordinary seasons. 



Arriving in ChiH about the end of the long dry 

 season, I had but very moderate expectations as to 

 the prospect of seeing much of its peculiar vegeta- 

 tion, and I was agreeably surprised to find that there 

 yet remained a good deal to interest me, especially 

 among the characteristic evergreen shrubs, having 

 much of the general aspect of those of the Mediter- 

 ranean region, though widely different in structure 

 from the Old-World forms. One or two slight showers 

 had fallen shortly before my arrival, and as a result 

 the ground was in many places studded with the 

 golden flowers of the little Oxalis lobata. This appears 

 to have a true bulb, formed from the overlapping 

 bases of the outer leaves, in the centre of which the 

 undeveloped stem produces one or more flowers, 

 which appear before the new leaves. The surface of 

 the dry baked soil was extremely hard, costing some 

 labour to break it with a pick in order to collect 

 specimens, and it is not easy to understand the pro- 

 cess by which a young flower-bud is enabled to force 

 its way to the upper surface. The open country on 

 the hills near Valparaiso is bare, trees being very 

 scarce, and for the most part reduced to the stature 

 of shrubs with strong trunks ; but in the ravines, or 

 qziebradas, that descend towards the coast some of 

 these rise to a height of twenty or twenty-five feet. 



One of the objects of my walk over the hills was to 

 obtain a good view of the Andes, and especially of 

 the peak of Aconcagua, the highest summit of the 

 New World. I had had a glimpse of the peak from 



