216 VALDIVIA. [CHAP. xiv. 



view of the magnificent Cordillera fronting Cliiloe. At night we 

 bivouacked under a cloudless sky, and the next morning reached San 

 Carlos. We arrived on the right day, for before evening heavy rain 

 commenced. 



February ^th. Sailed from Chiloe. During the last week I made 

 several short excursions. One was to examine a great bed of now- 

 existing shells, elevated 350 feet above the level of the sea: from 

 among these shells, large forest-trees were growing. Another ride was 

 to P. Huechucucuy. I had with me a guide who knew the country far 

 too well; for he would pertinaciously tell me endless Indian names 

 for every little point, rivulet, and creek. In the same manner as in 

 Tierra del Fuego, the Indian language appears singularly well adapted 

 for attaching names to the most trivial features of the land. I believe 

 every one was glad to say farewell to Chiloe ; yet if we could forget 

 the gloom and ceaseless rain of winter, Chiloe might pass for a 

 charming island. There is also something very attractive in the simplicity 

 and humble politeness of the poor inhabitants. 



We steered northward along shore, but owing to thick weather did 

 not reach Valdivia till the night of the 8th. The next morning fhe 

 boat proceeded to the town, which is distant about ten miles. We 

 followed the course of the river, occasionally passing a few hovels, 

 and patches of ground cleared out of the otherwise unbroken forest ; 

 and sometimes meeting a canoe with an Indian family. The town 

 is situated on the low banks of the stream, and is so completely buried 

 in a wood of apple-trees that the streets are merely paths in an 

 orchard. I have never seen any country where apple-trees appeared 

 to thrive so well as in this damp part of South America ; on the borders 

 of the roads there were many young trees evidently self-sown. la 

 Chiloe the inhabitants possess a marvellously short method of making 

 an orchard. At the lower part of almost every branch, small, conical, 

 brown, wrinkled points project ; these are always ready to change 

 into roots, as may sometimes be seen, where any mud has been 

 accidentally splashed against the tree. A branch as thick as a man's 

 thigh is chosen in the early spring, and is cut off just beneath a group 

 of these points ; all the smaller branches are lopped off, and it is then 

 placed about two feet deep in the ground. During the ensuing summer 

 the stump throws out long shoots, and sometimes even bears fruit : I 

 was shown one which had produced as many as twenty-three apples, 

 but this was thought very unusual. In the third season the stump is 

 changed (as I have myself seen) into a well-wooded tree, loaded with 

 fruit. An old man near Valdivia illustrated bis motto, " Necesidad es 

 la madre del invencion," by giving an accoum of the several useful 

 things he manufactured from his apples. After making cider, and 

 likewise wine, he extracted from the refuse a white and finely flavoured 

 spirit ; by another process he procured a sweet treacle, or, as he called 

 it, honey. His children and pigs seemed almost to live, during this 

 season of the year, in his orchard. 



February i ith. I set out with a guide on a short ride, in which, 

 however, I managed to see singularly little, either of the geology of 



