CHAPTER VIII. 



A VISIT TO THE CACHAPUAL. 



ARRIVE AT THE HACIENDA OF A FRIEND. THE PLAIN OF RANCAGUA. A CURIOUS HILL. RANCAGUA. THE CACHAPUAL. 

 THE POSADA AT THE DEPARTMENTAL CAPITAL. TRIALS OF A NIGHT. RETURN TO THE HACIENDA. TRAVELLING CHILE 

 FASHION. 



April 3. Left Santiago in company with the engineer of the Copiapo railroad, to visit the river 

 Cachapual, separating the department of Eancagua from the province of Colchagua, at the dis- 

 tance of twenty-two leagues from the capital. During the preceding week the weather had heen 

 unusually cool for the season, and greatly more overcast than in the corresponding period of the 

 preceding year, rendering it prohahle we might anticipate an agreeahle temperature hy day, 

 even if half stifled with dust on the road. Starting from the city with a relay of five horses, 

 we reached the Maypu near sundown, Mr. C. desiring to examine the newly constructed hridge 

 with a view to its future use for railroad purposes. The stream was lower than when I crossed 

 it in December, presenting, however, the same rapid, muddy, and torrent-like brook as then. 

 A part of the high banks bounding its waters during floods had been thrown down by the 

 earthquake of the preceding morning, and the walls of the neighboring houses had also been 

 injured to some extent ; but the strong stone abutments and piers had not experienced the least 

 damage, and the lattice-framed superstructure of wood had proved too flexible to be strained by 

 the undulations of the earth. Indeed, from the accounts of the toll-receivers, and the visible 

 effects of the phenomenon, it was concluded that we were without the eastern line of maximum 

 disturbance a fact of which the diminishing number and extent of broken walls, as we had 

 drawn nearer the Andes, had duly warned me. 



We were most kindly and hospitably welcomed at the hacienda of the friend with whom a week 

 had been passed so pleasantly in December ; and being the first persons whom they had seen from 

 the city since the earthquake, we were soon busy answering the thousand questions which the 

 vivid memories of its violence suggested. The mansion had been terribly shaken ; its walls 

 broken ; and one of the ladies a visitor in her eiforts to escape impending danger, was very 

 considerably injured by a fall. As the results of this earthquake have been detailed in Chapter 

 IV, PART I, no further mention need be made of it here than to say, that the ladies continued so 

 alarmed that they slept with doors partially open, and every preparation for instant flight. 

 True, there were still shocks every hour or two ; and at the commencement some of them were 

 sufficiently violent to cause the most serious apprehension. Instead of decreasing with the 

 frequency of their repetition, the terror they inspire augments in rapid ratio : one cannot become 

 "used to them." 



Soon after daylight next morning we were off agajn in the birlocho, and at sunrise had 

 reached the Angostura de Payne. The first beams were just illuminating the snow-peaks of 

 the cordillera del Diamante and the cliffs that towered on either hand beside us, whilst the 

 limpid stream of the gorge was rendered more darkly blue by reflection from a vertical sky 

 wholly unclouded. The plain extends rapidly to the east and west soon after clearing the 

 defile, presenting the same general characteristics that mark the basin to the northward; though 

 the eye does not fail to detect its more general cultivation, as well as a change in the number 

 and variety of the trees. For the first league the gently rising road winds along the base of the 

 western range, frequently crossing the narrow stream. Of a sudden the mountain chain bends 

 away to the southwest, the current flows more from the direction of the Andes, and the high- 



