254 NORTHERN CHILE. [CHAP, xvi, 



the loth, for the upper part of the valley of Copiap6. We rode all 

 day over an uninteresting country. I am tired of repeating the epithets 

 barren and sterile. These words, however, as commonly used, are 

 comparative ; I have always applied them to the plains of Patagonia, 

 which can boast of spiny bushes and some tufts of grass ; and this is 

 absolute fertility, as compared with northern Chile. Here again, 

 there are not many spaces of two hundred yards square, where some 

 little bush, cactus, or lichen, may not be discovered by careful examina- 

 tion ; and in the soil seeds lie dormant ready to spring up during the 

 first rainy winter. In Peru real deserts occur over wide tracts of 

 country. In the evening we arrived at a valley, in which the bed of 

 the streamlet was damp : following it up, we came to tolerably good 

 water. During the night, the stream, from not being evaporated and 

 absorbed so quickly, flows a league lower down than during the day. 

 Sticks were plentiful for firewood, so that it was a good place of 

 bivouac for us ; but for the poor animals there was not a mouthful to 

 eat 



June I I/A. We rode without stopping for twelve hours, till we 

 reached an old smelting-furnace, where there was water and firewood ; 

 but our horses again had nothing to eat, being shut up in an old court- 

 yard. The line of road was hilly, and the distant views interesting 

 from the varied colours of the bare mountains. It was almost a pity to 

 see the sun shining constantly over so useless a country ; such splendid 

 weather ought to have brightened fields and pretty gardens. The next 

 day we reached the valley of Copiap6. I was heartily glad of it ; for 

 the whole journey was a continued source of anxiety ; it was most 

 disagreeable to hear, whilst eating our own suppers, our horses gnawing 

 the posts to which they were tied, and to have no means of relieving 

 their hunger. To all appearance, however, the animals were quite 

 fresh ; and no one could have told that they had eaten nothing for the 

 last fifty-five hours. 



I had a letter of introduction to Mr. Bingley, who received me very 

 kindly at the Hacienda of Potrero Seco. This estate is between twenty 

 and thirty miles long, but very narrow, being generally only two fields 

 wide, one on each side the river. In some parts the estate is of no 

 width, that is to say, the land cannot be irrigated, and therefore is 

 valueless, like the surrounding rocky desert. The small quantity of 

 cultivated land in the whole line of valley, does not so much depend on 

 inequalities of level, and consequent unfitness for irrigation, as on the 

 small supply of water. The river this year was remarkably full : here, 

 high up the valley, it reached to the horse's belly, and was about 

 fifteen yards wide, and rapid ; lower down it becomes smaller and 

 smaller, and is generally quite lost, as happenedi during one period of 

 thirty years, so that not a drop entered the sea. The inhabitants 

 watch a storm over the Cordillera with great interest ; as one good fall 

 of snow provides them with water for the ensuing year. This is of 

 infinitely more consequence than rain in the lower country. Rain, as 

 often as it falls, which is about once in every two or three years, is a 

 great advantage, because the cattle and mules can for some time after- 



