ioo Cruise of the "Alert" 



sleeper. On hearing our whistle he looked round in a startled 

 altitude ; but to our astonishment, instead of jumping to one 

 side of the line, he lost his head, and passing on to the bridge 

 made frantic efforts to cross before our engine came up. The 

 bridge was an open framework, consisting simply of wooden piles, 

 spanbeams, and sleepers, and was so narrow that there was no 

 room for a foot-passenger at either side of a passing train. The 

 wretched man's misery must have been extreme, for as he crossed 

 the bridge he had to jump continually from sleeper to sleeper, 

 and could not of course look back again behind him to see how 

 things were going on. It was a moment of intense suspense to 

 us also, for it was now too late to stop the engine, Clark not 

 having calculated on the man attempting to cross before us. 

 However, he gained the off buttress of the bridge just in time 

 to throw himself down a bank on one side of the line, while the 

 "Quillapan" sped on like a whirlwind. 



We reached the Angol terminus at 1.30 p.m., and on coming 

 to a standstill, found ourselves the centre of a small admiring 

 crowd, consisting of Chilian peasants and Araucanian Indians, 

 The latter wore very scanty clothing, in which the only dis- 

 tinctive feature which I noticed was a band of red cloth tied 

 round the forehead and occiput. In stature and regular features 

 they somewhat resembled the Chilians, but their distinctly coppery 

 colour marked them out at once. Angol is now one of the 

 frontier settlements established recently by the Chilian Govern- 

 ment in Araucanian territory, and it is fortified against the maraud- 

 ing expeditions of these hardy warriors by a chain of forts which 

 overlook the settlement, and are garrisoned by regular Chilian 

 troops. The district is of great value, on account of the richness 

 of the soil and its suitability for the cultivation of wheat, which 

 has now become the staple article of commerce in the southern 

 provinces of the Republic. Our stay at Angol was, unfortunately, 

 very short, as the station-master told us that a train due at Angol 

 that afternoon was even then telegraphed as waiting at one of the 



