398 A YISIT TO THE SOUTHWARD. 



beneath, a milky stream foaming resistlessly through a contracted stony gorge. A landscape, 

 combining more of wild grandeur and picturesque loveliness at the same time, can scarcely be 

 imagined. How awful must have been the commotion when the power of the internal fires 

 thrust towards mid-heaven the infinity of separated hills within the compass of vision, and the 

 consternation with which the rush of the pent-up waters would have been beheld, sweeping 

 before them huge rocks that nothing but earthquakes could have moved from their resting 

 places ! 



The cabins, thirty in number, are in four ranges, enclosing a small square. They are rudely 

 built of adobes, thatched, whitewashed inside and out, and have corridors facing on the square. 

 As the invalids and other visitors appear to have had few diversions, the whitewash has almost 

 entirely disappeared under doggerel verses and other mementos scribbled with charcoal. Their 

 floors are the bare earth; and for furniture each room is supplied with two rush-seat chairs, a 

 table of rough boards, and two tressels, across which planks are laid to form a bedstead. Yet, 

 for the largest of these perhaps twenty feet square the charge is nine reals per day ; and there 

 are none at a lesser price than four reals. Besides these buildings there is- a small chapel ; 

 though neither it nor any room on the premises has a window or a pane of glass to admit light 

 or air, when its doors are closed. Luckily the latter have crevices enough to permit a tolerably 

 free circulation, without the necessity of keeping them open at night. It has already been 

 intimated that provisions are not easily obtainable, and one must come provided with every 

 requisite even a cook, for whom a sanctum is formed with branches of trees at the back door. 



The baths, five in number, are on a narrow shelf of land, twenty feet below, and between 

 the houses and river. They are oblong boxes, with tiled bottoms, enclosed in small thatched 

 cabins ; greatly more commodious and sheltered than those of Colina. The water which sup- 

 plies them flows through a conglomerate of lime, sand, and pebbles, whose surface is encrusted 

 with a portion of the mineral substances held in solution ; their temperatures varying according 

 to the size of the stream. None are more than half an inch in diameter, and one is but little 

 larger than a quill. The latter, of course, requires several hours to fill the bath into which it 

 empties; and its temperature becomes greatly reduced from the heat carried off by the earth. 

 They are situated along the shelf for a hundred yards, and have names in accordance with their 

 temperature or position, thus: Tibia (tepid), Corrimiento (flowing), Solitario (alone), Pelambrillo 

 (warm), Pelambre (hot), whose temperatures range from 79.2 to 120.5. Prof. Domeyko 

 tells me that the lowest temperature he found was 98.6, and the highest 121.4. This 

 was in the month of January. A single degree of difference in the heat of the warmest bath 

 is explicable by errors of the thermometers ; but 20 between the temperature of the coldest 

 now and at his visit only a year or two ago, is not so easily accounted for. There is no difference 

 between the temperatures at noon and midnight, as some have asserted; and Molina's account, 

 like a very large portion of his work, is sheer fable. It is charitable to believe that the Abbe 

 received as gospel whatever was told him, and with equal confidence presented to the world 

 accounts of many things of which he certainly had no personal information. Gas, presumed 

 to be azote, escapes freely in two of the baths ; the others are filled by streams flowing from 

 the vertical face of the cliff; thus, perhaps, preventing it from being seen in them, for, when at 

 the same temperature, there is no perceptible difference in the taste of the several waters. 



Invalids, who can afford it, are carried from their cabins in a sort of hand-barrow, without 

 feet, called a langariUo, which is formed of four sticks, with a raw hide laced over them. 

 Returning in the same vehicle, though now enveloped under a pile of blankets and clothing, 

 one may well conceive them corpses ; and the usual remark, when they cross the patio, is, "Aqui 

 viene otro cadavre" (Here comes another corpse). The bearers deposit the langarillo within 

 the cabin, where the friend or companion heaps on more cover ; and the patient remains so 

 wrapped up until perspiration, induced by the bath, begins to decrease. Quantities of the 

 water are also drunk, and, as might be anticipated from imbibing any heated water to excess, 

 it produces vomiting ; but its mineral constituents indicate that it must be almost tasteless, and 



