EL BRAMADOR. 123 



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 fin- 

 gers 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 dis- 

 covered. The union of a cloudless sky, low tem- 

 perature, and a furious gale of wind, must be, I 

 should think, in all parts of the world, an unusual 

 occun-ence. 



June 29th. — We gladly travelled down the val- 

 ley to our former night's lodging, and thence to 

 near the Agua amarga. On July 1st we reached 

 the valley of Copiapo. 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 bel- 

 lower. I did not at the time pay sufficient atten- 

 tion to the account; but, as far as I understood, 

 the hill was covered by sand, and the noise was 

 produced only when people, by ascending it, put 

 the sand in motion. The same circumstances are 

 described in detail on the authority of Seetzen and 

 Ehrenberg,* as the cause of the sounds which have 

 been heard by many travellers on Mount Sinai near 

 the Red Sea. One person with whom I conversed 

 had himself heard the noise ; he described it as 

 very surprising; and he distinctly stated that, al- 



* Edinburgh Phil. Journ., Jan., 1830, p. 74 ; and April, 1830, p. 

 258. Also, Daubeny on Volcanoes, p. 438 ; and Bengal Journ., 

 vol. vii., p. 324. 



