362 NORTHERN CHILE. [CHAP. xvi. 



The scene on all sides showed desolation, brightened and made 

 palpable by a clear, unclouded sky. For a time such scenery is sublime, 

 but this feeling cannot last, and then it becomes uninteresting. We 

 bivouacked at the foot of the " primera linea," or the first line of the 

 partition of the waters. The streams, however, on the east side do not 

 flow to the Atlantic, but into an elevated district, in the middle of 

 which there is a large salina, or salt lake ; thus forming a little 

 Caspian Sea at the height, perhaps, of ten thousand feet. Where we 

 slept, there were some considerable patches of snow, but they do not 

 remain through the year. The winds in these lofty regions obey very 

 regular laws : every day a fresh breeze blows up the valley, and at 

 night, an hour or two after sunset, the air from the cold regions above 

 descends as through a funnel. This night it blew a gale of wind, and 

 the temperature must have been considerably below the freezing-point, 

 for water in a vessel soon became a block of ice. No clothes seemed 

 to oppose any obstacle to the air ; I suffered very much from the cold, 

 so that I could not sleep, and in the morning rose with my body quite 

 dull and benumbed. 



In the Cordillera further southward, people lose their lives from 

 snow-storms ; here, it sometimes happens from another cause. My 

 guide, when a boy of fourteen years old, was passing the Cordillera 

 with a party in the month of May ; and while in the central parts, a 

 furious gale of wind arose, so that the men could hardly cling on their 

 mules, and stones were flying along the ground. The day was cloud- 

 less, and not a speck of snow fell, but the temperature was low. It 

 is probable that the thermometer would not have stood very many 

 degrees below the freezing-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, and a furious gale of 

 wind, must be, I should think, in all parts of the world, an unusual 

 occurrence. 



June zgth. We gladly travelled down the valley to our former 

 right's lodging, and thence to near the Agua amarga. On July ist 

 we reached the valley of Copiap6. 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 neighbourhood which they called "El 

 Bramador," the roarer or bellower. I did not at the time pay suffi- 

 cient attention to the account ; but, as far as I understood, the hill was 



