18385. ] VALDIVIA. 297 
showed its snowy summit. I hope it will be long before I forget 
this farewell view of the magnificent Cordillera fronting Chiloe. 
At night we bivouacked under a cloudless sky, and the next 
morning reached S. Carlos. We arrived on the right day, for 
before evening-heavy rain commenced, 
February 4th.—Sailed from Chiloe. During the last week 1 
made several short excursions. One was to examine a great bed 
of now-existing shells, elevated 350 feet above the level of the 
sea: from among these shells, large forest-trees were growing. 
Another ride was to P. Huechucucuy. I had with me a guide 
who knew the country far too well; for he would pertinaciously 
tell me endless Indian names for every little point, rivulet, and 
creek. In the same manner as in Tierra del Fuego, the Indian 
language appears singularly well adapted for attaching names to 
the most trivial features of the land. I believe every one was 
glad to say farewell to Chiloe; yet if we could forget the gloom 
and ceaseless rain of winter, Chiloe might pass for a charming 
island. ‘There is also something very attractive in the simplicity 
and humble politeness of the poor inhabitants. 
We steered northward along shore, but owing to thick weather 
did not reach Valdivia till the night of the 8th. The next 
morning the boat proceeded to the town, which is distant about 
ten miles. We followed the course of the river, occasionally 
passing a few hovels, and patches of ground cleared out of the 
otherwise unbroken forest ; and sometimes meeting a canoe with 
an Indian family. “The town is situated on the low banks of the 
stream, and is so completely buried in a wood of apple-trees that 
the streets are merely paths in an orchard. I have never seen 
any country, where apple-trees appeared to thrive so well as in 
this damp part of South America: on the borders of the roads 
there were many young trees evidently self-sown. In Chiloe 
the inhabitants possess a marvellously short method of making 
an orchard. At the lower part of almost every branch, small, 
conical, brown, wrinkled points project: these are always ready 
to change into roots, as may sometimes be seen, where any mud 
has been accidentally splashed against the tree. A branch as 
thick as a man’s thigh is chosen in the early spring, and is cut 
off just beneath a group of these points; all the smaller branches 
are lopped off, and it is then nlaced about two feet deep in the 
