^22 VALIDIVlA CHAP. 



face looked more like an old woman than a man. I frequently- 

 presented both of them with cigars ; and though ready to 

 receive them, and I daresay grateful, they would hardly con- 

 descend to thank me. A Chilotan Indian would have taken 

 off his hat, and given his " Dios le page !" The travelling 

 was very tedious, both from the badness of the roads and from 

 the number of great fallen trees, which it was necessary either 

 to leap over or to avoid by making long circuits. We slept on 

 the road, and next morning reached Valdivia, whence I pro- 

 ceeded on board. 



A few days afterwards I crossed the bay with a party of 

 officers, and landed near the fort called Niebla. The buildings 

 were in a most ruinous state, and the gun-carriages quite rotten. 

 Mr. Wickham remarked to the commanding officer, that with 

 one discharge they would certainly all fall to pieces. The 

 poor man, trying to put a good face upon it, gravely replied, 

 "No, I am sure, sir, they would stand two!" The Spaniards 

 must have intended to have made this place impregnable. 

 There is now lying in the middle of the courtyard a little 

 mountain of mortar, which rivals in hardness the rock on 

 which it is placed. It was brought from Chile, and cost 7000 

 dollars. The revolution having broken out prevented its being 

 applied to any purpose, and now it remains a monument of the 

 fallen greatness of Spain. 



I wanted to go to a house about a mile and a half distant, 

 but my guide said it was quite impossible to penetrate the 

 wood in a straight line. He offered, however, to lead me, by 

 following obscure cattle -tracks, the shortest way: the walk, 

 nevertheless, took no less than three hours ! This man is 

 employed in hunting strayed cattle ; yet, well as he must 

 know the woods, he was not long since lost for two whole 

 days, and had nothing to eat. These facts convey a good 

 idea of the impracticability of the forests of these countries. 

 A question often occurred to me — how long does any vestige of 

 a fallen tree remain? This man showed me one which a party 

 of fugitive royalists had cut down fourteen years ago; and taking 

 this as a criterion, I should think a bole a foot and a half in 

 diameter would in thirty years be changed into a heap of mould. 



February 20th. — This day has been memorable in the 

 annals of Valdivia, for the most severe earthquake experienced 



