64 FROM MENDOZA TO SANTIAGO AND BACIC 



ing very much, and applied the only remedy at hand — diluted laudanum — and by noon we were 

 ahle to move on. 



People of the country, and foreigners of little experience, are in the habit of speaking of the 

 arrieros and peons as invulnerable to disease, and capable of enduring any quantity of hard- 

 ship. To a certain extent this is true; but the secret of it consists in a constant and practical 

 application of the Spanish proverb, "Si hay remedio, remediarlo; y si no hay, para que 

 llorarlo?" — "if there be a remedy, apply it; but if not, where is the use of crying over it?" 

 While out of reach of assistance, they bear up on this jjrinciple most manfully against all ills ; 

 but when aid can be obtained, they yield to a greater extent than an unaccustomed traveller 

 would. For instance, when we were among the snow of the mountains, the arriero and peon 

 were as brisk and lively as bees, whilst I was on the point of giving up entirely ; but after our 

 arrival at the Arboleda, where their ailings could be attended to, they yielded to an extent I 

 should have been ashamed of. 



At noon set out and travelled till night, and early the next morning commenced the last 

 stage towards Mendoza. Before arriving, we met the peon of my other arriero, who was on the 

 look out for me, and anxious to be off. 



Eeached Mendoza at mid-day of the 20th, and found that my baggage had arrived three days 

 before. My friend Don Santiago Arcos had kindly taken charge of it, thus adding one more to 

 the many favors I already owed him. 



As I have mentioned this gentleman's name, it may be as well to state that he is one of the 

 most intelligent men I ever met in Chile, but unfortunately his constitution did not suit the 

 climate of that country ; and his uncles, " Los Senores Varas and Valdivieso," had insisted on 

 his removing to the more genial one of Mendoza. He was thus torn from all his associations 

 and forced to live among strangers. This over-exertion of friendly compulsion may not be 

 understood among our people, but in Chile, where the authority of a parent or guardian is abso- 

 lute, it is looked upon as a matter of course. 



Menboza. — Between my first and second visits to this place, with a view of obtaining more 

 accurate knowledge of its territory, the government had induced upwards of twenty caciques of 

 the Indian tribes to the southward to come in and give information. My old friend Don Carlos 

 was charged with the business of interrogating them and collating their reports ; and attached 

 so much importance to the data furnished tliat he was engaged in making a map of that part of 

 South America, which he proposed selling to the British government or our own, and was evi- 

 dently so unwilling for me to cojiy it that I did not care to press the matter. Indeed, from 

 practical experience, I knew that information collected in this way was so little reliable that I 

 was not disappointed by his reluctance to have me forestall him in the work. Twenty Indians 

 all speaking different dialects, and with knowledge of neither north, south, east, nor west, except 

 by the rising and setting of the sun or other heavenly body, nor any idea of distance but that 

 which depends on the condition of their horses, could not be expected to give information suf- 

 ficiently exact to insert in a geographical map. 



There were some things, however, that they all concurred in, and, as I was able to obtain 

 the pith of these, I will give them : 



First: that the Tunuyan, besides receiving the Diamante and Atuel, also receives the waters 

 of a number of small streams from the cordillera ; but, notwithstanding this increase, termi- 

 nates in a salt lake, called on Parrish's map " Urre Llauquen," but which they called " Cur- 

 raca;" that about one degree and a half north of this lake there is another, of fresh water, 

 on the west bank of the Tunuyan; and that not far from latitude forty degrees south, nearly 

 opposite the port of Valdivia on the Pacific, there still exists the ruins of an old Spanish settle- 

 ment, where rich copper mines were formerly worked very successfully. On an invasion by 

 the Indians, all the men were killed and the women and children carried into captivity, and 

 from these has sprung a tribe with lighter complexion, more European features, and greater 

 intelligence, than the other Indians of the country. They also stated that there was a well of 



