O54 NORTHERN CHILE. (crap, XvI. 
had died of hydrophobia. At Ica forty-two people thus mi- 
serably perished. The disease came on between twelve and ninety 
days after the bite; and in those cases where it did come on, 
‘death ensued invariably within five days. After 1808, a long 
interval ensued without any cases. On inquiry, I did not hear 
of hydrophobia in Van Diemen’s Land, or in Australia; and Bur- 
chell says, that during the five years he was at the Cape of 
Good Hope, he never heard of an instance of it. Webster 
asserts that at the Azores hydrophobia has never occurred ; and 
the same assertion has been made with respect to Mauritius and 
St. Helena.* In so strange a disease, some information might 
possibly be gained by considering the circumstances under which 
it originates in distant climates; for it is improbable that a 
dog already bitten, should have been brought to these distant 
countries, 
At night, a stranger arrived at the house of Don Benito, and 
asked permission to sleep there. He said he had been wander- 
ing about the mountains for seventeen days, having lost his way. 
He started from Guasco, and being accustomed to travelling in 
the Cordillera, did not expect any difficulty in following the 
track to Copiapéd; but he soon became involved in a labyrinth 
of mountains, whence he could not escape. Some of his mules 
had fallen over precipices, and he had been in great distress. 
His chief difficulty arose from not knowing where to find water 
in the lower country, so that he was obliged to keep bordering 
the central ranges. 
We returned down the valley, and on the 22nd reached the 
town of Copiapd. The lower part of the valley is broad, form- 
ing a fine plain like that of Quillota, The town covers a consi- 
derable space of ground, each house possessing a garden: but it 
is an uncomfortable place, and the dwellings are poorly fur- 
nished. Every one seems bent on the one object of making mo- 
ney, and then migrating as quickly as possible. All the inhabit- 
ants are more or less directly concerned with mines; and mines 
and ores are the sole subjects of conversation. Necessaries of 
* Observa. sobre el clima de Lima, p. 67.—Azara’s Travels, vol. i: p. 381 
—Ulloa’s Voyage, vol. ii. p. 28.—Burchell’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 524.—Web- 
ster’s Description of the Azores, p, 124.—Voyage & V’Isle de France par ww 
Officier du Roi, tome i. p. 248.—Description of St. Helena, p. 128, 
