OF SAN PEDRO NOLASCO. 



had perished when not a hundred and fifty yards 

 from the hut. With these monuments before my 

 eyes, it was really painful to consider what the 

 feelings of those wretched creatures must have been 

 when, groping about for their habitation, they found 

 the violence of the storm unabating and irresistible. 

 It was really melancholy to trace, or to fancy I 

 could trace, by the different groups or crosses, the 

 fate of the different individuals. Friends had 

 huddled together, and had thus died on the road ; 

 others had strayed from the path, and from the 

 scattered crosses, they had apparently died as they 

 were searching for it. One group was really in a 

 very singular situation ; during a winter particu- 

 larly severe, the miners^ provisions, which consist of 

 little else than hung-beef, were gradually failings 

 when a party volunteered, to save themselves and 

 the rest, that they would endeavour to get over the 

 snow into the valley of Maypo, and return if pos- 

 sible with food. They had scarcely left the hut, 

 when a storm came on, and they perished. The 

 crosses are exactly where the bodies were found ; 

 they were all off the road ; two had died close toge- 

 ther, one was about ten yards off, and one had 



