296 MINERAL SPRINGS. 



earth and rocks, and some of them rudely bricked up ; though to others, nothing more than the 

 excavation has been attempted. In two or three the water bubbles through a sandy deposit ; 

 the others are filled by miniature streams through crevices in the euritic porphyry forming 

 the base of the hills on both sides of the ravine. Divisions between bathers and the outer world 

 are made in the same careless and comfortless style as everything else. The baths are merely 

 enclosed with screens of reeds and brush-wood, loosely covered with like material, each visitor 

 hanging a cloth over the doorway through which he enters. Unfortunately, the property is in bad 

 hands for the proper development of its value ; and even natives are unable to encounter incon- 

 veniences forced on .those whose want of health would recommend a sojourn there. Therefore, 

 most Santiaguinos who avail themselves of the water either cause it to be brought to town or 

 ride to the baths, and return immediately to their homes. Although the supply of water is 

 limited, its undoubted medicinal value, its proximity to the city, an abundance of land for 

 dwellings and a promenade which might soon be covered with fine trees, its healthy position, 

 and the beautiful view that it commands, in any other country would long since have caused it 

 to be improved and made a fashionable resort. 



As a small rivulet flows down the ravine and between the baths, its source was sought under 

 the impression that there might be some difference of temperature or other physical variation 

 higher up, but the stream proved to be sweet and not mineral water. The ascent of its bed is not 

 much more rapid than that of the majority of streams in Chile, though the hills continue to rise 

 on either side ; and in a walk of a few hundred yards, one is within a deep quebrada filled with 

 water-worn boulders and rocks, from amid which vegetation grows luxuriantly, but where the 

 direct rays of the sun never penetrate except at midsummer. 



COLIN A. 



These baths are on the hacienda of Peldegue, also the property of the Dominicans, and 

 twenty-five miles to the southward of the city. At a greater distance than three leagues from 

 Santiago in this direction, there has hitherto been very little water for the purposes of arti- 

 ficial irrigation, so that the vegetation of the plain east of the road is confined to dwarf acacias 

 (A, cavenia) and herbage whose roots can resist the droughts of summer. The Colina river or 

 rivulet affords a limited supply to the western side, and a recently cut canal will soon bring the 

 rest under cultivation. Originating in the Andes near latitude 33 05' south, and longitude 70 

 25' west, the Colina flows S.W. by W. for thirty miles, and thence south for fifteen more, falling 

 into the Mapocho at Pudagiiel. One or two mountain rivulets increase its volume during the first 

 part of its course ; but above their junction, and where the road to the baths crosses it, in the 

 month of November it was only a brook, rapid and turbid as the Mapocho at Santiago, four or 

 five yards wide and a foot deep. It is evident, however, from the space occupied by gravel, 

 water-worn stones of considerable magnitude, and washings of the banks, that there are periods 

 when the volume is more than one hundred yards broad ; but the growth of cacti and other 

 plants shows that this cannot have been the case for several years. 



The main road to San Felipe de Aconcagua winds along the base of precipitous spurs from 

 the Andes, composed of rocks of the same porphyritic character as at Apoquindo, covered in 

 some places with soil ; but in many others the masses are bare and columnar as are portions of 

 Santa Lucia. To the eye the general width of the plain is as great as it is to the south of the 

 city, with deep glens between the spurs of the Andes, partially cultivable by aid of rains and 

 scanty supplies from natural springs. Overhung as they are by snow peaks, and dotted with 

 groups of white dwellings among groves of trees and brighter colored fields of grain, some of 

 these glens are exceedingly beautiful. 



Leaving Santiago on horseback at 4 p. M., and riding leisurely, my companion and myself did 

 not reach the river until twilight. As we were shut in by the hills, this deepened rapidly into 

 obscurity. At some twelve miles from the city we had left the Aconcagua road to the west, and 



