iidO CENTRAL CHILE. 



but even to the present day, water is removed from 

 some mines by men canying it up the shaft in 

 leathern bags ! 



The labouring men work very hard. They have 

 little time allowed for their meals, and during sum- 

 mer and winter they begin when it is light, and 

 leave off at dark. They are paid one pound ster- 

 ling a month, and their food is given them : this, 

 for breakfast, consists of sixteen hgs and two small 

 loaves of bread ; for dinner, boiled beans ; for sup- 

 per, broken roasted wheat grain. They scarcely 

 ever taste meat, as, with the twelve pounds per 

 annum, they have to clothe themselves and support 

 their families. The miners who work in the mine 

 itself have twenty-five shillings per month, and are 

 allowed a little charqui. But these men come 

 down from their bleak habitations only once in 

 every fortnight or three weeks. 



During my stay here I thoroughly enjoyed 

 scrambling about these huge mountains. The ge- 

 ology, as might have been expected, was very in- 

 teresting. The shattered and baked rocks, trav- 

 ersed by innumerable dikes of gi'eenstone, showed 

 what commotions had formerly taken place. The 

 scenezy was much the same as that near the Bell 

 of Q.uillota — dry, baiTen mountains, dotted at in- 

 tervals by bushes with a scanty foliage. The cac- 

 tuses, or, rather, opuntias, were here very numerous. 

 I measured one of a spherical figure, which, inclu- 

 ding the spines, was six feet and four inches in 

 circumference. The height of the common cylin- 

 drical branching kind is from twelve to fifteen feet, 

 and the girth (with spines) of the branches between 

 three and four feet. 



A heavy fall of snow on the mountains prevent- 

 ed me, during the last two days, from making some 

 interesting excursions. I attempted to reach a lake 



