1834.] FLOATING ISLANDS. 265 



One day I rode up the valley to the farthest inhabited 

 spot. Shortly above that point, the Cachapual divided into 

 two deep tremendous ravines, which penetrate directly into 

 the great range. I scrambled up a peaked mountain, 

 probably more than six thousand feet high. Here, as indeed 

 everywhere else, scenes of the highest interest presented 

 themselves. It was by one of these ravines that Pincheira 

 entered Chile, and ravaged the neighbouring country. 

 This is the same man whose attack on an estancia at the 

 Rio Negro I have described. He was a renegade, half-cast 

 Spaniard, who collected a great body of Indians together 

 and established himself by a stream in the Pampas, which 

 place none of the forces sent after him could ever discover. 

 From this point he used to sally forth, and crossing the 

 Cordillera by passes hitherto unattempted, he ravaged the 

 farmhouses and drove the cattle to his secret rendezvous. 

 Pincheira was a capital horseman, and he made all around 

 him equally good, rbr he invariably shot any one who hesi- 

 tated to follow him. It was against this man, and other 

 wandering Indian tribes, that Rosas waged the war of 

 extermination. 



September i^th. — We left the baths of Cauquenes, and 

 rejoining the main road slept at the Rio Claro. From this 

 place we rode to the town of San Fernando. Before arriving 

 there, the last land-locked basin had expanded into a great 

 plain, which extended so far to the south, that the snowy 

 summits of the more distant Andes were seen as if above the 

 horizon of the sea. San Fernando is forty leagues from 

 Santiago ; and it was my farthest point southward ; for we 

 here turned at right angles towards the coast. We slept at 

 the gold mines of Yaquil, which are worked by Mr. Nixon, 

 an American gentleman, to whose kindness I was much 

 indebted during the four days I stayed at his house. The 

 next morning we rode to the mines, which are situated at 

 the distance of some leagues, near the summit of a lofty 

 hill. On the way we had a glimpse of the lake Tagua- 

 tagua, celebrated for its floating islands, which have been 

 described by M, Gay.* They are composed of the stalks of 

 various dead plants intertwined together, and on the surface 

 of which other living ones take root. Their form is gener- 

 ally circular, and their thickness from four to six feet, of 



* "Annalrn des Sciences Naturelle«," Miirch 1833. M. Gav, a zealoiij* and 

 able natiiraliHt, was then occupied in studying every branch ot natural liistory 

 throughout the kingdom of Chue. 



