1835.] SALT-LAKM 377 



While staying in this upper region, we lived entirely upon tortoise- 

 meat : the breast-plate roasted (as the Gauchos do came con cuero), 

 with the flesh on it, is very good ; and the young tortoises make 

 excellent soup ; but otherwise the meat to my taste is indifferent. 



One day we accompanied a party of the Spaniards in their 

 whale-boat to a salina, or lake from which salt is procured. 

 After landing, we had a very rough walk over a rugged field of 

 recent lava, which has almost surrounded a tuff-crater, at the 

 bottom of which the salt-lake lies. The water is only three or 

 four inches deep, and rests on a layer of beautifully crystallized, 

 white salt. The lake is quite circular, and is fringed with a border 

 of bright green succulent plants ; the almost precipitous walls of 

 the crater are clothed with wood, so that the scene was altogether 

 both picturesque and curious. A few years since, the sailors 

 belonging to a sealing-vessel murdered their captain in this quiet 

 spot ; and we saw his skull lying among the bushes. 



During the greater part of our stay of a week, the sky was 

 cloudless, and if the trade-wind failed for an hour, the heat be- 

 came very oppressive. On two days, the thermometer within 

 the tent stood for some hours at 93° ; but in the open air, in the 

 wind and sun, at only 85°. The sand was extremely hot ; the 

 thermometer placed in some of a brown colour immediately rose 

 to 137°, and how much above that it would have risen, I do not 

 know, for it was not graduated any higher. The black sand felt 

 much hotter, so that even in thick boots it was quite disagreeable 

 to walk over it. 



The natural history of these islands is eminently curious, and 

 well deserves attention. Most of the organic productions are 

 aboriginal creations, found nowhere else ; there is even a differ- 

 ence between the inhabitants of the different islands ; yet all 

 show a marked relationship with those of America, though sepa- 

 rated from that continent by an open space of ocean, between 

 500 and 600 miles in width. The archipelago is a little world 

 within itself, or rather a satellite attached to America, whence 

 it has derived a few stray colonists, and has received the general 

 character of its indigenous productions. Considering the small 

 size of these islands, we feel the more astonished at the number of 

 their aboriginal beings, and at their confined range. Seeing every 



