368 A VISIT TO THE SOUTHWARD. 



Meantime tidings of the arrival of a stranger got wind among the beggars, and we were not 

 destined to be long neglected by some of the most pressing members of the profession belonging 

 to San Fernando. With the earliest of them came a robust and well dressed man on horseback. 

 He was evidently blind of both eyes. The story of "the beggar on horseback" is familiar to 

 every boy; but Chile gives finishing touches to anomalous pictures, and furnishes servants or 

 companions well dressed and well mounted, to lead the horses of sightless equestrian mendicants ! 

 As they seemed unwilling to receive "No" in answer, and could not be regarded as objects 

 really needing charity, it was suggested to the companion that he might earn a creditable sup- 

 port for both, if he would sell the horses and rent a bit of ground and till it. To ascertain 

 how much laziness had to do with their pursuit, I proposed to pay the companion a real, if he 

 would bring me meat, bread, and a bottle of mosto from the town ; his blind friend to be led 

 away with him, but his own horse to remain as a security that he would return with the value of 

 the money to be given him. In a region where a peon can only earn a real and a half per day, 

 two thirds of that sum for half an hour's walk with a little basket on his arm seemed pretty good 

 pay ; but the pair probably regarded the occupation and walking as degrading, and marched off 

 in great indignation. While these were talking, two other active and healthy men laid at my 

 feet a hand-barrow containing a paralyzed and deformed old woman, the contortions of whose 

 face, in her efforts to speak, were most painful to behold. Kepeating to her bearers the thank- 

 less counsel given the blind beggar and his companion, the wretched semblance of humanity 

 was gotten rid of with a bit of silver, and Nor Nicolas proceeded to bar the entrance to the patio, 

 as a relief from further importunity, the outsiders grumbling loud as well as deep at the "maZ- 

 dito Gringo" who would not even listen to them. The entry of my host just afterwards with a 

 black earthen dish (borrowed from the neighbor who had sold the bread), was an intimation that 

 the casuela would soon be ready, and I removed a pile of newspapers from the table, that he 

 might arrange it for the meal ; a needless precaution, as this dish and an iron spoon proved to be 

 all the table furniture. The only knife belonging to the premises was a huge weapon used by the 

 cook, that would (and no doubt did) serve to slaughter oxen ; and of course there was no fork. 

 Luckily my penknife had a blade stout enough to divide the joints of a fowl, fingers proved 

 capital substitutes for the steel-pronged implement, and hunger made a charmingly conclusive 

 argument in favor of primitive customs. 



To the westward there is a range of moderate hills, rendered lofty by their proximity ; and 

 whilst discussing the really excellent casuela, the sun had gone down behind them, leaving' above 

 their summits masses of cumulo-stratus, tinged with vermillion and gold, as brilliant in their 

 hues as the most glorious inter-tropical exhibition at sunset. These I watched from the corridor, 

 following the changes of each little flocula through a misty veil, of Cuban origin, and listening to 

 the murmuring waters of the Tinguiririca to absolute forgetfulness of the present, until the 

 nearer buzz of mosquitos proved as effectual in recalling the locale as if Nor Nicolas had 

 sounded a trumpet beside me. At half-past seven, although the moon had reached its first 

 quarter, the sky was almost of a black color, and the stars of a brightness rarely equalled, per- 

 haps, even, in this extraordinary atmosphere. When the planet Venus sank behind the hill, 

 the sight was an interesting one, as astronomical readers will perceive. It was not an instan- 

 taneous immersion of the entire disc, but a rapid and strikingly notable diminishing in the 

 brilliancy of the planet's rays ; the final disappearance, however, so pronounced that a keen 

 observer would scarcely have erred one tenth of a second in the time of its occurrence. 



March 28. The morning was sharp, almost frosty, and when we rode out of the posada 

 yard the sun was struggling behind just such a bank of clouds above the Andes as had wit- 

 nessed his setting yesterday. Immediately after leaving San Fernando, the road leads up the 

 dry bed of the Tinguiririca ; and as it is scarcely anything more than stones and gravel, rolled 

 smooth in their rapid journey from elevations of the mountains, there was little opportunity to 

 start the blood by a gallop, though abundant time to admire the lower ranges of mountains 

 terminating the view to the eastward. A viler highway than movable stones at the bottom of 



