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JOURNAL. 



on horseback at the time. Unless the shocks are very violent, or the 

 sound very loud, the horses and mules do not appear to feel them. 



I rode to Valparaiso : the morning was dull and drizzling. I can- 

 not describe the effect of such a day on the scenery between Quintero 

 and Concon, by the long beach of nine miles : on one side the sand- 

 hills with not a sign of vegetation, on the other a furious surf; both 

 seeming interminable, and being lost in the thick air ; or if a breeze 

 now and then blows the haze aside, the distant dreary points of 

 land seem suspended far above the visible horizon, and one goes on 

 with a kind of desperate eagerness to see what will be the end. I 

 was in a fine humour for moralising. Earthquake under me, civil 

 war around me ; my poor sick relation apparently dying ; and my 

 kind friend, my only friend here indeed, certainly going to leave the 

 country, at least for a time.* All this left me with nothing but the 

 very present to depend on ; and, like the road I was travelling, 

 what was to come was enveloped in dark clouds, or at best afforded 

 most uncertain glimpses of the possible future. 



In such cases the mind is apt to make a sport to itself of its very 

 miseries. I more than once on the way caught myself smiling over 

 the fanciful resemblances I drew between human life and the scene 

 I was in ; or at the fatality which had brought me, an Englishwoman, 

 whose very characterestic is to be the most domestic of creatures, 

 almost to the antipodes, and placed me among all the commotions of 

 nature and of society. But if not a sparrow falls unheeded to the 

 ground, I may feel sure that I am not forgotten. Often am I obliged 

 to have recourse to this assurance, to make me bear evils and incon- 

 veniences that none, not the meanest, in my own happy country 

 would submit to without complaint. 



The appearance of Mr. Miers at the little rock near the mouth of 

 the river dissipated all my misty reflections, however. He had come 

 to show me the new ford, the old one being now dangerous ; and we 

 had a pleasant ride together to his house, where we breakfasted. I 



* See Lord Cochrane'.* address to the Chilenos hereafter in the Journal. 



