256 CENTRAL CHILE. (cma. XII 
This must be an old name, for it is very many years since a gua- 
naco drank its waters. During the ascent I noticed that nothing 
but bushes grew on the northern slope, whilst on the southern 
slope there was a bamboo about fifteen feet high. In a few 
places there were palms, and I was surprised to see one at an 
elevation of at least 4500 feet. ‘These palms are, for their family, 
ugly trees. Their stem is very large, and of a curious form, 
being thicker in the middle than at the base or top. They are 
excessively numerous in some parts of Chile, and valuable on ac- 
count of a sort of treacle made from the sap. On one estate near 
Petorca they tried to count them, but failed, after having num- 
bered several hundred thousand. Every year in the early spring, 
in August, very many are cut down, and when the trunk is lying 
on the ground, the crown of leaves is lopped off. ‘The sap then 
immediately begins to flow from the upper end, and continues so 
doing for some months : it is, however, necessary that a thin-slice 
should be shaved off from that end every morning, so as to ex- 
pose a fresh surface. A good tree will give ninety gallons, and 
all this must have been contained in the vessels of the apparently 
dry trunk. It is said that the sap flows much more quickly on 
those days when the sun is powerful; and likewise, that it is ab- 
solutely necessary to take care, in cutting down the tree, that it 
should fall with its head upwards on the side of the hill; for if it 
falls down the slope, scarcely any sap will flow ; although in that 
case one would have thought that the action would have been 
aided, instead of checked, by the force of gravity. The sap is 
concentrated by boiling, and is then called treacle, which it very 
much resembles in taste. , 
We unsaddled our horses near the spring, and prepared to 
pass the night. The evening was fine, and the atmosphere so 
clear, that the masts of the vessels at anchor in the bay of Val- 
paraiso, although no less than twenty-six geographical miles 
distant, could be distinguished clearly as little black streaks. A 
ship doubling the point under sail, appeared as a bright white 
speck. Anson expresses much surprise, in his voyage, at the 
distance at which his vessels were discovered from the coast; but 
he did not sufficiently allow for the height of the land, and the 
great transparency of the air. 
-The setting of the sun was glorious; the valleys being black, 
