o4G NORTHERN CHILE. [< 'HAP. xvr. 



by the side of his mule near the road, with the bridle still in his 

 hand. Two other men in the party lost their fingers 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 sup- 

 posed to have perished from a similar cause, but their bodies to this 

 day have never been discovered. The union of a cloudless sky, low 

 temperature, and a furious gale of wind, must be, I should think, 

 in all parts of the world an unusual occurrence. 



June 29</;. We gladly travelled down the valley 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. Whil'st 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 bellower. I did not at 

 the time pay sufficient attention to the account ; but, as far as I 

 understood, the hill was covered by sand, and the noise was pro- 

 duced only \vhen 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 Eed Sea. 

 One person with whom I conversed had himself heard the noise : 

 he described it as very surprising ; and he distinctly stated that, 

 although he could not understand how it was caused, yet it was 

 necessary to set the sand rolling down the acclivity. A horse walk- 

 ing over dry and coarse sand, causes a peculiar chirping noise from 

 the friction of the particles ; a circumstance which I several times 

 noticed on the coast of Brazil. 



Three days afterwards I heard of the Beagle's arrival at the Port, 

 distant eighteen leagues from the town. There is very little land 

 cultivated down the valley ; its wide expanse supports a wretched 

 wiry grass, which even the donkeys can hardly eat. This poorness 

 of the vegetation is owing to the quantity of saline matter with 

 which the soil is impregnated. The Port consists of an assemblage 

 of miserable little hovels, situated at the foot of a sterile plain. At 

 present, as the river contains water enough to reach the sea, the 

 inhabitants enjoy the advantage of having fresh water within a mile 



* Edinburgh Phil. Journ., Jan. 1830, p. 74; and April, 1830, p. 258 

 also Daubeny on Volcanoes, p. 433 ; and Bengal Jonru.. vol. vii. p. 324. 



