1835.] VALDIVIA. 285 



made several short excursions. One was to examine a great bed of 

 now-existing shells, elevated 350 feet above the level of the sea : 

 from among these shells, large forest-trees were growing. Another 

 ride was to P. Huechucucuy. I had with me a guide who knew 

 the country far too well ; for he would pertinaciously tell me 

 endless Indian names for every little point, rivulet, and creek. 

 In the same manner as in Tierra del Fuego, the Indian language 

 appears singularly well adapted for attaching names to the most 

 trivial features of the land. I believe every one was glad to say 

 farewell to Chiloe ; yet if we could forget the gloorn and ceaseless 

 rain of winter, Chiloe might pass for a charming island. There is 

 also something very attractive in the simplicity and humble polite- 

 ness of the poor inhabitants. 



We steered northward along shore, but owing to thick weather 

 did not reach Valdivia till the night of the 8th. The next morning 

 the boat proceeded to the town, which is distant about ten miles. 

 We followed the course of the river, occasionally passing a few 

 hovels, and patches of ground cleared out of the otherwise unbroken 

 forest; and sometimes meeting a canoe with an Indian family. 

 The town is situated on the low banks of the stream, and is so 

 completely buried in a wood of apple-trees that the streets are 

 merely paths in an orchard. I have never seen any country, where 

 apple-trees appeared to thrive so well as in this damp part of South 

 America : on the borders of the roads there were many young 

 trees evidently self-sown. In Chiloe the inhabitants possess a 

 marvellously short method of making an orchard. At the lower 

 part of almost every branch, small, conical, brown, wrinkled points 

 project : these are always ready to change into roots, as may some- 

 times be seen, where any mud has been accidentally splashed 

 against the tree. A branch as thick as a man's thigh is chosen in 

 the early spring, and is cut off just beneath a group of these points; 

 all the smaller branches are lopped off, and it is then placed about 

 two feet deep in the ground. During the ensuing summer the 

 stump throws out long shoots, and sometimes even bears fruit : I 

 was shown one which had produced as many as twenty-three 

 apples, but this was thought very unusual. In the third season 

 the stump is changed (as I have myself seen) into a well-wooded 

 tree, loaded with fruit. An old man near Valdivia illustrated 

 his motto, " Necesidad es la madre del invention," by giving an 

 account of the several useful things ho manufactured from his 



