A VISIT TO TIIE SOUTHWARD. .'if, 7 



A\h<-n the si.l't and li.|iii<l pulp is conv.-rtc.l into paste. If not in strict accordance with the 

 I' fpiruifs in fruits, as tin- \\licat has been thoroughly cooked in the roasting, it is 

 ,i \. iv \\linl, -..in.- n-past. and may be pleasant to the piilate. What most excites 

 IK- larilit y with which they can stow a melon nearly a foot in diainrti-r under their 

 \\ai.Nthands. 



I'M >m the accounts which had been given me, I supposed the country a continuous plain or 

 valley, with a slight though uniform inclination to the southward. Strictly speaking it cannot 

 be so considered, but is rather a succession of basins that communicate with each other through 

 gorges sometimes on the same level, though quite as often with slight intervening eminences, 

 the continuation of spurs abutting the two ranges of mountains. There were just clouds 

 enough overhanging the latter to temper the heat and render the day pleasant ; and but for the 

 dust stirred up by the constant mule-trains, the ride would have been charming. Many of these 

 trains were bringing planks and small timber from beyond Talca. From 300 to 400 pounds 

 wri-ht is packed on each animal in such manner that the upper ends project above and in ad- 

 vance, and the lower trail along the ground free of the mule's heels. It is by no means pleasant 

 on a narrow road to encounter caravans thus loaded. Wandering as the animals will in search 

 of melon-rinds left by travelling cartmen, or impelled by the cries of the arrieros from side to 

 sit If, it is much safer to give them the whole road than risk the legs of a horse among the 

 trailing lumber. 



Rengo a straggling village built on both sides of the main road for more than a mile is 

 an hour's travel from the hacienda of the Requinua. Some of its houses have decided preten- 

 sions to the first rank, and its people a regularity of features especially notable. We made 

 no halt here, but continued our journey over a road that left the town of Curico two miles to 

 the right. San Fernando our resting-place was reached an hour before sunset. Stopping 

 before an untidy-looking house in the northern skirts of the town, the guide told me it was the 

 posada ; but its appearance was so uninviting, I concluded that so extensive and populous a 

 place must afford better quarters, and pushed on, thinking to find them nearer the centre. 

 Evidently (in my thought) Nicolas knew nothing, having never departed from the line of the 

 road to the south, and, like the rest of his kind, having never made inquiries beyond the want of 

 the instant, little caring for others if that want was supplied without his aid. But the only 

 other inn to be heard of was at the most distant extremity of the town, on the road to the Tin- 

 guiririca ford. Not supposing it could be worse than that before us, as so much would be 

 gained in the direction of the journey, there seemed no risk in seeking it. 



When we arrived there, its very decent sign-board, a house large enough to accommodate a 

 score or more of guests, good corridors along its front, and an ample patio, together with a 

 field in the rear supposed to afford good pasturage, were all fair external promises ; and when 

 the landlord promised "anything" to eat, the decision to come on seemed a subject of con- 

 gratulation. "All is not gold that glitters," says the proverb; and so it proved here. The 

 rooms had never been whitewashed ; and their bare earthen floors apparently gave repose to the 

 accumulated dust of ages all but one being as destitute of furniture as on the day that the 

 builders had left them. Within this room there were a pair of tressels, with three or four 

 boards across them, to serve as a bedstead, an equally rude table of unsmoothed planks, and 

 one rush-seat chair the only one, I believe, within the whole enclosure. True, there was an 

 abundance of dry pasturage, though neither a stalk of alfalfa nor other green food for the 

 horses; and as for the "anything" promised as our food, there were small potatoes, a pumpkin, 

 and fowls still pecking about the yard. But the horses had been unsaddled and the cargo-mule 

 relieved of her load, before its impoverished condition was fully ascertained; and as there might 

 be many such accommodating posaclas to encounter before returning, it was better to meet 

 the contretemps with a smiling face. And thus it was not long before a couple of fowls, knocked 

 over with sticks, were simmering with some vegetables in an otta, and a neighbor sold us a 

 small loaf of bread to help out the repast. 



