CENTRAL CHILE chap. 



periodical increase during the summer, when rain never falls, 

 can, I think, only be accounted for by the melting of the snow : 

 yet the mountains which are covered by snow during that season 

 are three or four leagues distant from the springs. I have no 

 reason to doubt the accuracy of my informer, who, having lived 

 on the spot for several years, ought to be well acquainted with 

 the circumstance, — which, if true, certainly is very curious ; for, 

 we must suppose that the snow-water, being conducted through 

 porous strata to the regions of heat, is again thrown up to the 

 surface by the line of dislocated and injected rocks at Cauquenes ; 

 and the regularity of the phenomenon would seem to indicate 

 that in this district heated rock occurred at a depth not very great. 

 One day I rode up the valley to the farthest inhabited spot. 

 Shortly above that point, the Cachapual divides into two deep 

 tremendous ravines, which penetrate directly into the great range. 

 I scrambled up a peaked mountain, probably more than six 

 thousand feet high. Here, as indeed everywhere else, scenes of 

 the highest interest presented themselves. It was by one of 

 these ravines that Pincheira entered Chile and ravaged the 

 neighbouring country. This is the same man whose attack on 

 an estancia at the Rio Negro I have described. He was a 

 renegade half-caste Spaniard, who collected a great body of 

 Indians together and established himself by a stream in the 

 Pampas, which place none of the forces sent after him could 

 ever discover. From this point he used to sally forth, and 

 crossing the Cordillera by passes hitherto unattempted, he 

 ravaged the farm-houses and drove the cattle to his secret 

 rendezvous. Pincheira was a capital horseman, and he made 

 all around him equally good, for he invariably shot any one 

 who hesitated to follow him. It was against this man, and 

 other wandering Indian tribes, that Rosas waged the war of 

 extermination. 



September i ^th. — We left the baths of Cauquenes, and rejoin- 

 ing the main road slept at the Rio Claro. From this place we 

 rode to the town of S. Fernando. Before arriving there, the last 

 land-locked basin had expanded into a great plain, which 

 extended so far to the south that the snowy summits of the 

 more distant Andes were seen as if above the horizon of the sea. 

 S. Fernando is forty leagues from Santiago ; and it was my 



