208 VALPARAISO —SANTIAGO. July 1829. 
the shafts, and the others outside, attached to the carriage bya 
single trace of hide; and preceded by a drove of horses, from 
which, at the end of every stage of twelve or fifteen miles, we 
selected a relay. The day was so very stormy, that we saw 
but little of the country. Immediately after leaving the Almen- 
dral, or suburbs of Valparaiso, we ascended twelve hundred 
feet, and then descended about four hundred feet to an extensive 
plain, reaching to the Cuesta de Zapato, the summit of which, 
at least the highest part of the road over it, we found by 
barometrical measurement to be 1,977 feet above the sea. In 
the interval we passed through the village of Casa Blanca, 
lying eight hundred and three feet above the sea. After passing 
the Cuesta de Zapato, between it and the Cuesta de Prado, 
is another extensive valley, through which runs the River 
Poangui. At Curacavi, where we crossed the river, the height 
above the sea is six hundred and thirty-three feet ;* and the 
road proceeds by a gentle ascent to the foot of the Cuesta de 
Prado, near which is the village of Bustamente, eight hundred 
and eight feet above the sea. 
This ‘ cuesta’ is passed by a very steep road, and is ascended 
by twenty-seven traverses, which carry one to a height of 2,100 
feet above the plain, or 2,950 feet above the sea. When we 
reached the summit of this mountain the weather was so cloudy, 
that the Andes were almost concealed from view. Beneath us 
was the extensive plain of Maypo, with the city of Santiago 
in the distance, a view of considerable extent, and possessing 
very great interest; but from the state of the weather, its 
beauty would not have been seen to advantage, had not portions 
of the towering Andes, raised by optical deception to apparently 
twice their height, appeared at intervals among the clouds. On 
* Miers, in his account of Chile, gives a table of barometrical mea- 
surements of the heights of the land between Valparaiso and Mendoza, 
from which it appears that he has deduced the height of Curacavi to be 
1,560 feet. As my determinations are the results of observations made 
on my way to and from Santiago, I have no doubt of their correctness, and 
think that the registered height of Miers’s table should be 29-355 instead 
of 28-355. 
