186 CENTRAL CHILE. [CHAP. xn. 



number separated to be fattened in the irrigated fields. Wheat is 

 extensively cultivated, and a good deal of Indian corn : a kind of bean 

 is, however, the staple article of food for the common labourers. The 

 orchards produce an overflowing abundance of peaches, figs, and grapes. 

 With all these advantages, the inhabitants of the country ought to be 

 much more prosperous than they are. 



July ibth. The mayor-domo of the Hacienda was good enough to 

 give me a guide and fresh horses ; and in the morning we set out to 

 ascend the Campana, or Bell Mountain, which is 6,400 feet high. The 

 paths were very bad, but both the geology and scenery amply repaid 

 the trouble. We reached, by the evening, a spring called the Agua 

 del Guanaco, which is situated at a great height. This must be an 

 old name, for it is very many years since a guanaco drank its waters. 

 During the ascent I noticed that nothing but bushes grew on the northern 

 slope, whilst on the southern slope there was a bamboo about fifteen 

 feet high. In a few places there were palms, and I was surprised to 

 see one at an elevation of at least 4,500 feet. These palms are, for 

 their family, ugly trees. Their stem is very large, and of a curious 

 form, being thicker in the middle than at the base or top. They are 

 excessively numerous in some parts of Chile, and valuable on account 

 of a sort of treacle made from the sap. On one estate near Petorca 

 they tried to count them, but failed, after having numbered several 

 hundred thousand. Every year in the early spring, in August, very 

 many are cut down, and when the trunk is lying on the ground the 

 crown of leaves is lopped off. The sap then immediately begins to flow 

 from the upper end, and continues so doing for some months ; it is, how- 

 ever, necessary that a thin slice should be shaved off from that end every 

 morning, so as to expose a fresh surface. A good tree will give ninety 

 gallons, and all this must have been contained in the vessels of the 

 apparently dry trunk. It is said that the sap flows much more quickly 

 on those days when the sun is powerful ; and likewise, that it is abso- 

 lutely necessary to take care, in cutting down the tree, that it should fall 

 with its head upwards on the side of the hill ; for if it falls down the 

 slope, scarcely any sap will flow ; although in that case one would have 

 thought that the action would have been aided, instead of checked, by 

 the force of gravity. The sap is concentrated by boiling, and is then 

 called treacle, which it very much resembles in taste. 



We unsaddled our horses near the spring, and prepared to pass the 

 night. The evening was fine, and the atmosphere so clear, that the 

 masts of the vessels at anchor in the Bay of Valparaiso, although no less 

 than twenty-six geographical miles distant, could be distinguished 

 clearly as little black streaks. A ship doubling the point under sail, 

 appeared as a bright white speck. Anson expresses much surprise, in 

 his voyage, at the distance at which his vessels were discovered from 

 the coast ; but he did not sufficiently allow for the height of the land, and 

 the great transparency of the air.- 



The setting of the sun was glorious ; the valleys being black, whilst 

 the snowy peaks of the Andes yet retained a ruby tint. When it was 

 dark, we made a fire beneath a little arbour of bamboos, fried our 



