254 A VISIT TO THE PROVINCES 



parallel in many places, the cavities of one having its projecting counterpart on the opposite 

 wall, and we irresistibly conclude that one of these convulsions has rent the hills asunder. How 

 awful must have been the shock ! With the associations inseparable from the scenes of the pre- 

 ceding December and April still fresh in memory, one could not help shuddering at finding 

 himself on such a spot, irremediably enclosed in case of a like catastrophe. It is, beyond all 

 question, the locality which exhibits terrestrial mutability more extraordinarily than any one I 

 had ever visited. The gradual uprising of a continent inch by inch, extending, as it does, 

 through ages the wearing away of mountain ranges by torrents originating in trickling drops 

 from over-full lakes both tell of time whose duration wearies the mind in its contemplation ; 

 but in the accomplishment of the event whose results we witness here, there was perhaps no time. 

 In the twinkling of an eye, almost before thought could give birth to terror, the pent up storm 

 burst forth, flung wide the massive rocks opposing its egress, and in a brief space the earth 

 had again settled tremblingly to quietude. 



The road to the mines formerly passed by a zigzag over the hill here ; nor was it discovered 

 that nature had provided a practicable one at the very base, until a short time ago. For fifteen 

 years mule-trains had travelled over its steep ascent, hundreds of the poor animals falling 

 victims to the toil. When found, even levelling was unnecessary, for this service had been 

 performed by the stream whose waters had traversed the Angostura ; and it was only requisite 

 to blast a few rocks which subsequent earth-storms had cast into the narrow space, to make a 

 perfect carriage road. At several places there are little handfuls of surface water, and the 

 earth is quite moist all round them, though no attempt appears to have been made to excavate 

 for a supply. This seems more extraordinary when one sees such numbers of mule carcasses 

 literally strewing the road from the Angostura to the Cuesta de Chanarcillo, a range of hills 

 separating waters originally flowing into the Copiapo from the affluents of the Guasco river. 

 An abundant supply is found at the base and on the northwest side of the range just men- 

 tioned ; and from the wells there dug, both the mule-trains and the nearer mines are furnished. 

 When the neighborhood is blessed by a rain, a scanty stick-like pasturage suddenly springs up 

 and matures with like celerity. This is carefully gathered by the people of the little Posada at the 

 wells, and is doled out for the horses of travellers at prices exceeding that of equal weights of 

 pure copper. As lumps of scoria still remain on the hill, and even in the corral of the Posada, 

 a furnace must once have existed in the vicinity for smelting ores of this metal. No informa- 

 tion respecting it could be obtained from the people. 



At the base of the Cuesta, the northwest side, an aneroid barometer indicated an eleva- 

 tion of 4,412 feet above the ocean ; where the road crosses the summit, 4,850 feet ; and at the 

 base, on the southeast side of the range, 4,597" feet. A new and winding road, more easy of 

 ascent, was in course of construction, the old one being extremely precipitous and fatiguing. 

 Several varieties of plants may be found near the summit, whose sustenance in the way of moisture 

 must be entirely drawn from the dews at night, or fog-clouds that hang about it during the win- 

 ter and spring months. Although there was a cold and driving wind in our faces, under whose 

 influence even the horses became restive, it was impossible not to stop when we repassed it some 

 days subsequently, for admiration of the tints enveloping the entire landscape from the far 

 away snow-peaks of the Andes on our right to the strata of the immediate basins and ravines 

 below us. If not already beneath our horizon, the sun must have been very near it, and was 

 wholly obscured. Thus, most of the objects were seen at an angle oblique to the direction of 

 his rays, and the hues were of the darkest yet sharpest characters. The snow-crests were of a 

 rosy pink, the summits of the nearer hills bright orange, and each successive stratum between 

 us and the bottom of the western valley of a gradually darker shade to the most decided violet. 



From the base on the eastern side to "El Bolaco," its southerly termination four leagues 

 distant, there is a continual and rapid descent ; and though the road lies through a ravine with 

 somewhat similar characteristics as on the opposite side, the latter may have been but the channel 

 for occasional rains whose water accumulated from the sides of bounding hills. I could not but 



