1835.] EL BRAMADOR. 



ing-point, but the effect on their bodies, ill protected by clothing, 

 must have been in proportion to the rapidity of the current of cold 

 air. The gale lasted for more than a day ; the men began to lose 

 their strength, and the mules would not move onwards. My 

 guide's brother tried to return, but he perished, and his body was 

 found two years afterwards, lying by the side of his mule near 

 the road, with the bridle still in his hand. Two other men in 

 the party lost their fingers and toes ; and out of two hundred 

 mules and thirty cows, only fourteen mules escaped alive. Many 

 years ago the whole of a large party are supposed to have perished 

 from a similar cause, but their bodies to this day have never been 

 discovered. The union of a cloudless sky, low temperature, ami 

 a furious gale of wind, must be, I should think, in all parts of 

 the world, an unusual occurrence. 



June 29th. We gladly travelled down the valley to our for- 

 mer night's lodging, and thence to near the Agua amarga. On 

 July 1st we reached the valley of Copiapo. The smell of the 

 fresh clover was quite delightful, after the scentless air of the 

 dry sterile Despoblado. Whilst staying in the town I heard an 

 account from several of the inhabitants, of a hill in the neigh- 

 bourhood which they called " El Bramador," the roarer or 

 bellower. I did not at the time pay sufficient attention to the 

 account ; but, as far as I understood, the hill was covered by 

 sand, and the noise was produced only when people, by ascending 

 it, put the sand in motion. The same circumstances are described 

 in detail on the authority of Seetzen and Ehrenberg,* as the 

 cause of the sounds which have been heard by many travellers on 

 Mount Sinai near the Red Sea. One person with whom I con- 

 versed, had himself heard the noise ; he described it as very sur- 

 prising; and he distinctly stated that, although he could not 

 understand how it was caused, yet it was necessary to set the sand 

 rolling down the acclivity. A horse walking over dry and coarse 

 sand, causes a peculiar chirping noise from the friction of the 

 particles ; a circumstance which I several times noticed on the 

 coast of Brazil. 



Three days afterwards I heard of the Beagle's arrival at the 



* Edinburgh Phil. Journ., Jan. 1830, p. 74; and April, 1830, p. 258. 

 Also Daubeny on Volcanoes, p. 438 ; and Bengal Joum., vol. vii. p. 324. 



