VALPARAISO. 127 



colonists on both sides of the Andes throw so dexterously either 

 to catch cattle, or to make prisoners in war. The stirrups appended 

 to these singular-looking saddles are either plain silver stirrups, hav- 

 ing silver loops, &c. on the stirrup leathers ; or in case of riding 

 through woods on long journeys, a kind of carved box very heavy, 

 and spreading considerably, so as to defend the foot from thorns 

 and branches. Returning from a short walk to-da}^, I had a good 

 opportunity of seeing a group of horsemen, young and old, who had 

 come from the neighbourhood of Rancagua, a town near the foot of 

 the Andes, to the southward of Santiago, with a cargo of wine and 

 brandy. The liquor is contained in skins, and brought from the 

 interior on mules. It is not uncommon to see a hundred and fifty 

 of these under the guidance of ten or a dozen peons, with the 

 guaso or farmer at their head, encamping in some open spot near 

 a farm-house in the neighbourhood of the town. Many of these 

 houses keep spare buildings, in which their itinerant friends secure 

 their liquor while they go to the farms around, or even into town, 

 to seek customers, not choosing to pay the heavy toll for going into 

 the port, unless certain of sale for the wine. I bought a quantity 

 for common use : it is a rich, strong, and sweetish white wine, 

 capable, with good management, of great improvement, and infi- 

 nitely preferable to any of the Cape wines, excepting Constantia, 

 that I ever drank. I gave six dollars for two arobas of it, so that 

 it comes to about S\d. per bottle. The brandy might be good, but 

 it is ill distilled, and generally spoiled by the infusion of aniseed. 

 The liquor commonly drank by the lower classes is chicha, the regular 

 descendant of that intoxicating chicha which the Spaniards found the 

 South American savages possessed of the art of making, by chewing 

 various berries and grains, spitting them into a large vessel, and 

 allowing them to ferment. Rut the great and increasing demand 

 for chicha has introduced a cleanlier way of making it ; and it is 

 now in fact little other than harsh cyder, the greater part being 

 produced from apples, and flavoured with the various berries which 

 formerly supplied the whole of the Indian chicha. 



