CUESTA DE PRADO. — PUDAGUEL. 197 
road is discernible here and there. The high hills which surround 
the city, and the most magnificent range of mountains in the world, 
the cordillera of the Andes, now capped with snow, shooting into 
the heavens, with masses of cloud rolling in their dark valleys, pre- 
sented to me a scene I had never beheld equalled. In the fore- 
ground there is a great deal of fine wood; and had there been water 
in sight, the landscape would have been perfect. 
At the foot of the Cuesta, on the city side, we were happy to find 
an excellent breakfast of broiled mutton after our long ride; and we 
rested both ourselves and our horses for some time. The road from 
thence to the next stage, Pudaguel, is over a hot sandy plain, sprinkled 
with mimosas, and rendered hotter by the reflection of the sun from 
the arid surface. Pudaguel is a post on the banks of the lake of 
Pudaguel, which terminates at this point. It is vulgarly imagined 
that the river Mapocho, on which the city of Santiago is built, runs 
thus far, and here sinks through the gravel and sand to reappear by 
seven mouths on the other side of the mountain San Miguel, whence 
it flows into the vale of the Maypu, falling into that river near Melli- 
pilla; but the lake of Pudaguel does not communicate with the Mapo- 
cho, it is fed by the streams of Colinas and Lampa. The Mapocho, 
much diminished by the canals taken from it for irrigation, does dis- 
-appear somewhere in the plain of Maypu; and the water of the beau- 
tiful fountain from San Miguel, being of the same sweet, light, and 
clear quality as that of the Mapocho, is called by that name until it 
joins the white and turbid Maypu. _ It is such accidents as these which 
the poetical Greeks delighted to adorn with the rich fabulous imagery 
which spreads a charm over all they deigned to sing of. How much 
more beautiful is the scenery round the banks of Pudaguel, than the 
dirty washing-place that marks the fountain of Arethusa in Syracuse ! 
And yet, when I stood there actually hearing and seeing vulgar Sici- 
lians, surrounded by mean squalid houses and with nothing more 
sacred than a broken plaster image of the Virgin, my imagination, 
longing from youth to see where “ Divine Alceus did by secret 
sluice steal under-ground to meet his Arethuse,” soon encrusted the 
