196 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



irrigation and the higher ground, burnt by the summer 

 to a uniform yellow-brown tint, was striking to the 

 eye. The town of Santa Rosa, laid out on the flat at 

 the foot of the hill, was a curious feature in the 

 prospect. It was designed on the regular plan which 

 seems to have recommended itself to all the European 

 settlers in the American continent, but which I have 

 nowhere seen so exactly carried out as at this place. 

 A chess-board supplied the model, with one row of 

 squares cut off to avoid some rough ground. Fifty-six 

 squares — quadras — exactly equal in size, are divided 

 by broad roads, and the whole is surrounded by a 

 wall about half a mile in length each way. The 

 quadra in the centre forms the plasa ; the others were 

 to be occupied by houses and gardens. To make the 

 town, as planned by its founders, a perfect model, it 

 wants nothing but houses and people to live in them. 

 It was, perhaps, imagined that, being on the main line 

 of communication across the Andes, this might become 

 a place of some importance ; but the traffic is very 

 limited, and, such as it is, it is carried on by trains of 

 horses and mules that travel to and fro between 

 Valparaiso and Mendoza. The area of land fit for 

 cultivation in the valley above San Felipe is small, 

 and the resort of retail traders doubtless very limited. 

 The result is that Santa Rosa is a town without 

 houses. Many of the quadras are occupied by a 

 single house and annexed garden, and only round or 

 close to the plaza is such a thing as a row of adjoining 

 buildings to be seen. 



The morning of May 25 was noteworthy as pro- 

 ducing the solitary instance of punctuality in a native 



