256 JOURNAL. 



may perhaps be justly charged on the war ; but the waste in the 

 management of the dairy and butchery is still such, that I think the 

 number might bear a much further diminution without producing 

 any distress, — nay, that the country would be benefited by it. In 

 Padre Ovalle's time, nothing but the tongues and ribs of their oxen 

 were used ; the rest was thrown into the sea on the coasts, or on the 

 bone-heap in-land for the vultures. Even now the heads in some 

 places, in all the bones, when the main part of the flesh is cut off, 

 are thrown out, excepting where there are foreigners to make soup ; 

 the hearts and livers are also thrown away ; so that nearly a quarter of 

 the food which an ox would furnish in Europe is lost here, not to 

 mention that the horns, hoofs, and bones are utterly wasted. But the 

 war is not the only cause of the diminution of the number of the 

 cattle; — a great deal more land is now brought into cultivation 

 for corn ; the people eat more bread ; they have a large demand 

 for the provisioning the foreign ships and fleets in the Pacific, and 

 they export more grain ; consequently more land is enclosed, and 

 those who formerly derived their whole income from cattle have 

 discovered that it is more profitable to grow a certain proportion 

 of corn. 



We had scarcely left Viluca when the day began to clear. I never 

 beheld any thing finer than the gradual opening of the clouds, now 

 rollino- far below the summits of the mountains and seeming to fill 

 up their valleys, and now curling over their tops and dispersing in 

 the air. At a short distance from the house of Viluca we came to a 

 ford of the Maypu, much more difficult than that we passed before. 

 The gravelly bed of the river here spreads at the foot of a mountain 

 nearly a mile, but the stream itself occupies but a small portion. 

 We crossed six great branches ; four of which took the horses to the 

 girths, and one was so rapid that some of the animals were fright- 

 ened, and began to give way ; but the example of the rest encouraged 

 them, and we crossed happily. Above and below the ford, where 

 the stream is all in one, it is impossible to attempt crossing : a guide 

 is quite necessary in travelling in Chile on account of the rivers. 



