JOUENEY TO SANTIAGO. 



29 



in Chili are unfit for carriages, all travelling is on 

 horseback ; and the ordinary pace being a hand 

 gallop, the change of horses is necessarily fre- 

 quent. The only wheeled vehicle in use is a 

 large lumbering cart, or waggon, drawn by six or 

 eight oxen, at a very slow rate ; but the transport 

 of goods from the port to the capital, and thence 

 all over the country, is performed by mules of an 

 excellent breed. ; ^ 



Our journey was injudiciously arranged ; for, 

 instead of taking one half of it early in the morn- 

 ing, and the other in the evening, we travelled 

 in the middle of the day, when the heat, to which 

 we were exposed, was intense. The whole coun- 

 try was burnt up ; the sun flamed out with a 

 bright glare over every thing, raising hot vapours 

 from the ground like the breath of an oven ; not 

 a blade of grass was any where to be seen ; not 

 a drop of moisture ; every thing was parched and 

 withered along the baked ground, which was riven 

 into innumerable crevices ; no breeze of wind came 

 to relieve us, and the heat was therefore intolera- 

 bly oppressive. 



In the course of the morning we passed several 



