VALPARAISO. 185 
by a wild Indian enemy, threatened by the regular troops and ships 
of Chile, with no communication direct or indirect from the mother 
country ; he has never faltered for a single instant. 
August 12th. — Mr. D—— came to breakfast, and to escort me to 
Concon, a parish about fifteen miles from hence, lying on the great 
river of Aconcagna, which flows from the pass of the Andes called 
the Cumbre, and waters the fertile valley of Santa Rosa and the 
garden-land of Quillota. The ride is pleasant, although most of the 
road is so bad that it would scarcely be deemed passable in England ; 
but I have seen worse in the Appenines. It winds in many places 
along the edges: of precipices. From Valparaiso to Vifia a la Mar, 
upon the little river Margamarga, the scenery is the same as that 
immediately about the port. Steep hills and rocks mostly covered 
with flowering shrubs ; little cultivation except in the glens, which, 
formed by the rivulets, open to the sea, and where gardens and patches 
of barley surround every hut. The ocean is always in sight ; some- 
times breaking at the foot of the high rocks we passed over, and 
sometimes washing gently in upon the yellow sands at the mouth 
of the streams from the cultivated valleys. At Vifia a la Mar, a fine 
estate belonging to a branch of the Carrera family, the scenery begins 
to change. The plain there is wide and open, the vineyard and po- 
trero very extensive; the shrubs assume almost the appearance of trees; 
on the hills there are frequent plots of fine grass, where sheep and 
cattle find abundant pasture ; and the palm here and there adorns 
the sides of the vales. The near view is like some of the finest parts 
of Devonshire; but the hills of Quillota, over which the volcano of 
Aconcagua, which forms a remarkable point in the central ridge of 
the Andes, towers, render it unlike any thing in England, I might say 
in Europe. The high mountains of Switzerland are always seen from 
a point extremely elevated ; but here, from the sea-shore, the whole 
mass of the cordillera rises at once, at only ninety miles’ distance. 
This gives a peculiarity to the landscape of Chile which distinguishes 
‘it, even more than its warm colour, from any I have seen before. 
The proprietor of Vifia a la Mar is improving his estate in every 
way ; miles of new fences are rising, thickets are disappearing, corn 
BB 
