A VISIT TO THE SOUTHWARD. 3'J'J 



experimentally it is HO nearly o, tli.it I full. .wed the custom of the place, well knowing that if 

 it did no good it could <!' ii" harm. From September until June is the season when they are* 

 most frequented: persons coming from Copiapo an.l Valdivia the extremities of the republic 

 many of whom are conveyed on ;i lan^arillo, or are held on IIOIX-M during the last five or six 

 leagues of the journey. Nino days is the period designated an sufiicicnt for the waters to prove 

 their efficacy : and >> extraordinary are some of the cures reputed to have been effected within 

 that time, that they have more fame than any other mineral springs, yet they differ from tho.-e. 

 at I'oliua only in their temperatures. Cutaneous, rheumatic, and diseases originating in crim- 

 inal intercourse, are those for which Cauquenes is most resorted to. At this time nearly all the 

 rooms are occupied, some of them containing families of five or six persons, so that there is 

 quite a populous colony. Among them is an old friar of La Merced, who rouses the (female 

 portion of the) visitors to attend mass before daylight in the morning, that he may not be 

 interrupted afterwards whilst administering to his own physical necessities. He is decidedly 

 the most popular person, and never opens his door that a bevy of women do not flock to it. 



Mass is the only public distraction. A common room in which all might assemble except 

 the chapel is an advance in civilization of which the merits are yet to be appreciated. Even 

 the regular posadas do not always possess one, but each traveller eats in his bed-room. And 

 thus life at a Chilean watering-place is by no means a gay one. A bath at sunrise; breakfast; 

 a lounge ; another bath ; dawdle again, or gossip with a neighbor, if you can catch one with a 

 door open ; dine towards sundown ; a mate or two ; bed. You may vary this with two or three 

 walks or horseback rides, but the latter require prevision. For want of pasturage the horses are 

 kept ten miles off; and if you would walk, you must be content to wade through the dust ankle- 

 deep of the bridle-path, or climb steep hill-sides, keeping a sharp lookout the while, that a 

 branch of litre venenosa does not strike and poison your face. Such a routine is the lot of most 

 who go ; and perhaps the sort of animal existence to which they are accustomed makes them 

 content with it. At Colina, dancing under impromptu arbors has more than once varied the 

 Chinese-like uniformity, but no one had ever heard of such departure from staid custom here ; 

 and the multitude who encounter the privations of a journey are real invalids, not seekers of 

 fashionable diversions. Our party was of a gayer stamp. We climbed the hills, and, spite the 

 sea of dust, rambled alon-g paths by the south shore of the river, sometimes visiting the ravine 

 in which flows the snow-water supplying our kitchen, and at others crept along the pebbly bed 

 and up the pyramidal rocks in the stream, where none but goats had ever been before, enjoying 

 the infinite variety of picturesque views presented within every hundred yards we moved. 

 Then we had agreeable books ; one member of the party was an accomplished musician ; there 

 were cargoes of provisions and fruits from kind friends to our fair companion often twice each 

 day, and we were made the dispensers of her bounty among the poor and unprovided invalids. 

 More than all, we were in the enjoyment of robust health ; prepared to appreciate nature, and to 

 laugh at the substitutes we were obliged to introduce for accustomed conveniences of domestic 

 life. 



Originally my plans did not contemplate a sojourn of more than one day beyond that on 

 which I arrived; but there were many views to be seen, and the solicitations of my two friends to 

 commiserate their isolation were urged so earnestly, that it would have been ungrateful to refuse ; 

 and two other days were most agreeably passed here, the. last ppobably that I shall ever spend 

 at a Chilean watering-place. 



From a mean of eleven barometrical observations during the four days, the height of the 

 plateau on which the baths are situated is 2,790 feet above the sea. During the same period 

 the greatest range of the mercurial column was .130 inch, and the extremes of temperature for 

 the same hours (9 A. M. and 3 p. M.) were 61.8 and 77.0. Of necessity, in summer the 

 climate must be subject to great changes of temperature, caused by reflection and radiation in 

 the ravine by day, and the cold air which invariably pours down it from the Andes by night. 

 Doubtless the S.W. wind prevailing by day at that season somewhat tempers the heat; but the 



