CHAPTER XI. 



MINERAL SPRINGS. 



APOQUINDO. COLINA: TOPOGRAPHY OP THE BATHS; ANALYSIS OP THE WATERS; ACCOMMODATIONS FOR VISITORS; A 

 NIGHT IN THE CABINS. CAUQUENES t CELEBRATED FOR THE CURE OF CERTAIN DISEASES ; BEAUTIFUL LOCATION. 

 PANIMAVILA: THE ONLY BATHS KNOWN AT THE LEVEL OF THE GREAT VALLEY; TEMPERATURE, ODOR, AND MINERAL 

 INGREDIENTS OF THE WATER. MONDACA : THEIR LOCALITY, TEMPERATURE, AND MINERAL CONSTITUENTS ; NO AC- 

 COMMODATIONS. CATO. CHILLAN. SULPHUR BATHS IN A RAVINE OF THE ANDES; DWELLINGS; TEMPERATURE OF 

 THE SPRINGS; WHOLE ATMOSPHERE IMPREGNATED WITH SULPHURETTED HYDROGEN; BOILING WATER BENEATH A 

 SNOW-BANK. DONA ANA : THE ONLY MINERAL SPRINGS RESORTED TO IN THE NORTHERN PART OF CHILE ; THEIR 

 LOFTY POSITION AMONG THE ANDES ; TEMPERATURE OF WATER; i.TC. SOCO : SITUATED NEAR THE OCEAN ; ALSO IN 

 THE PROVINCE OF COQUIMBO. 



APOQUINDO. 



The mineral baths of Apoquindo are three leagues to the eastward of Santiago, and on the 

 base of the first chain of the Andes. The road towards them follows the Mapocho during the 

 first league after leaving the city, and then, at the junction of the Maypu canal, bends more to 

 the right. It passes between the best cultivated chacras and prettiest quintas of the neighbor- 

 hood. Between the canal and the fields immediately at the base of the mountains, owing to 

 scarcity of water, there is a strip of less productive land ; yet all the fields are made to yield 

 something for the supply of the great market so near to them., and groves of olives and fruit- 

 trees may be seen on either side. 



The baths are on an estate belonging to the Dominican monks, the white towers of whose 

 large convent and chapel, a mile or more to the northward, loom pleasantly amid green foliage. 

 To the convent, as well as to the entrance of the enclosed field in which are the baths, the 

 ascent is almost imperceptible ; but for the last mile the ground rises more rapidly, and at the 

 spot where the water issues from the earth one will have attained a height of 2,600 feet above 

 the level of the sea, and some 750 feet above that of the plaza of Santiago. In fact the ascent 

 of the Andes will have been begun. The surrounding hills are covered with shrubbery and an 

 undergrowth of pasturage ; in spring, sprinkled with gay-colored flowers, overlooked by num- 

 bers of the tall cacti (Cereus quisco) so often mentioned, and whose large cream-tinted flowers 

 render them striking and beautiful objects. Here many of them are more than fifteen feet high, 

 with trunks larger than the body of a man, from which a score of smaller arms project, giving 

 them the appearance of huge candelabra. Their flowers have an elongated pear-shaped base, 

 an inch and a half in its greatest diameter, crowned by a double row of lanceolate petals, 

 arranged in the form of a bell four or five inches across the mouth. Within, the pistils and 

 stamens are gracefully grouped and equally pretty. 



The baths, six in number, are supplied from small springs near the mouth of a ravine, 

 which becomes somewhat wider, and, because of the rise of the hills, apparently much deeper, 

 as one proceeds eastward. Those on the north side of the ravine have been called, indiscrimi- 

 nately, " Banos de litre," a tree of that species (L. venenosa) growing over them, and 

 " Agua de la sarna" (itch-water), from its efficacy in curing that disease ;* and those on the 

 south side, "Agua de la canita" (water from the little spout), a small tube being inserted to 

 facilitate its collection as it issues from the rock. The latter is drank, and is probably more 



* It is very generally believed that the litre Will poison all who remain long beneath its shadow, although they may not 

 touch its foliage. Would it not be curious if its atmosphere, and not the water, is the remedy for this cutaneous disorder ? 



