272 



JOURNAL. 



is bent to maintain the church, and to persecute, or at least keep 

 down, those who are not of it. 



It was not without regret that on the 28th September I left 

 Santiago, where I have been so kindly received, and where there is 

 still much new and interesting to see. I do hope to return in 

 summer, when I mean to cross the mountain by the Cumbre pass *, 

 visit Mendoza, and return by the pass of San Juan de los Patos ; by 

 which the great body of San Martin's army entered the country in 

 1816. However, in the meantime I must gain a little more health, 

 and a great deal more strength. I am scarcely sorry that I was 

 obliged to travel in a caleche for once. All our party assembled after 

 passing the toll-house, and other necessary ceremonies at the house of 

 Loyola, the owner of the caleche, about a league from Santiago, on 

 the plain called the Llomas j and then, sick as I felt, I could not help 

 laughing at the " set out.'''' In the first place, there was the calisa, a 

 very light square body of a carriage, mounted on a coarse heavy axle, 

 and two clumsy wheels painted red, while the body is sprigged and 

 flowered like a furniture chintz, lined with old yellow and red Chinese 

 silk, without glasses, but having striped gingham curtains. Between 

 the shafts, of the size and shape of those of a dung-cart, was a fine 

 mule, not without silver studs among her trappings, mounted by a 

 handsome lad in a poncho, and armed with spurs whose rowels were 

 bigger than a dollar, and with a little straw hat stuck on one side. 



CO * 



On each side of the mule was a horse, fastened to the axle of the 

 wheel, each with his rider, also in full Chile costume. Then there 

 was Loyola's son as a guide, handsomely dressed in a full guaso dress, 

 mounted on a fine horse : with him Mr. Dance and Mr. Candler, of the 

 Doris, also in the same dress ; my young friend de Roos having left 

 us some days before on the expiration of his leave of absence. Last, 

 though by no means least, in his own esteem, was my peon Felipe, 

 with his three mules and the baggage, accompanied by another peon 



* The barometer gives 12,000 feet as the greatest height of the pass at the foot of the 

 volcano of Aconcagua, where that river flows to the west, and that of Mendoza to the east. 



