334 JOURNAL. 
on horseback at the time. Unless the shocks are very violent, or the 
sound very loud, the horses and mules do not appear to feel them. 
I rode to Valparaiso: the morning was dull and drizzling. I can- 
not describe the effect of such a day on the scenery between Quintero 
and Concon, by the long beach of nine miles: on one side the sand- 
hills with not a sign of vegetation, on the other a furious surf; both 
seeming interminable, and being lost in the thick air; or if a breeze 
now and then blows the haze aside, the distant dreary points of 
land seem suspended far above the visible horizon, and one goes on 
with a kind of desperate eagerness to see what will be the end. I 
was in a fine humour for moralising. Earthquake under me, civil 
war around me; my poor sick relation apparently dying; and my 
kind friend, my only friend here indeed, certainly going to leave the 
country, at least for atime.* All this left me with nothing but the 
very present to depend on; and, like the road I was travelling, 
what. was to come was enveloped in dark clouds, or at best afforded 
most uncertain glimpses of the possible future. 
In such cases the mind is apt to make a sport to itself of its very 
miseries. I more than once on the way caught myself smiling over 
the fanciful resemblances I drew between human life and the scene 
I was in; or at the fatality which had brought me, an Englishwoman, 
whose very characterestic is to be the most domestic of creatures, 
almost to the antipodes, and placed me among all the commotions of 
nature and of society. But if not a sparrow falls unheeded to the 
ground, I may feel sure that I am not forgotten. Often am I obliged 
to have recourse to this assurance, to make me bear evils and incon- 
veniences that none, not the meanest, in my own happy country 
would submit to without complaint. 
The appearance of Mr. Miers at the little rock near the mouth of 
the river dissipated all my misty reflections, however. He had come 
to show me the new ford, the old one being now dangerous ; and we 
had a pleasant ride together to his house, where we breakfasted. I 
* See Lord Cochrane’s address to the Chilenos hereafter in the Journal. 
