122 NORTHERN CHILE. 



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 throughout the year. The 

 winds in these lofty regions obey very regular 

 laws : every day a fresh breeze blows up the val- 

 ley, 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 be- 

 low the freezing-point, for water in a vessel soon 

 became a block of ice. No clothes seemed to op- 

 pose 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 be- 

 numbed. 



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 Cordil- 

 lera 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 cloudless, and not a speck of snow fel], 

 but the temperature was low. It is probable that 

 the thermometer would not have stood very many 

 degrees below the freezing-point, but the eflfect 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 



