322 CHILE. Sept. 1834. 



rain never falls, can, I think, only be accounted for by the 

 melting of the snow : yet the mountains which are covered 

 by snow during that season are three or four leagues distant 

 from the springs. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy 

 of my informer, who having hved on the spot for several 

 years, ought to be well acquainted with the circumstance, — 

 which, if true, certainly is very curious : for, we must sup- 

 pose that the water, being conducted through porous strata 

 to the regions of heat, is again thrown up to the surface 

 by the line of dislocated and injected rock at Cauquenes; 

 and the regularity of the phenomenon would seem to in- 

 dicate that in this district heated rock occurred at a depth 

 not excessively great. 



One day I rode up the valley to the furthest inhabited 

 spot. Shortly above that point, the Cachapual divides into 

 two deep tremendous ravines, which penetrate directly into 

 the great range. I scrambled up a peaked mountain, pro- 

 bably more than six thousand feet high. Here, as indeed 

 every where else, scenes of the highest interest presented 

 themselves. It was by one of these ravines that Pincheira 

 entered Chile, and ravaged the neighbouring country. This 

 is the same man whose attack on an estancia at the Rio 

 Negro I have described. He was a renegade half- cast 

 Spaniard, who collected a great body of Indians together, and 

 established himself by a stream in the Pampas, which place 

 none of the forces sent after him could ever discover. From 

 this point he used to sally forth, and crossing the Cordillera 

 by passes hitherto unattempted, he ravaged the farm-houses, 

 and drove the cattle to his secret rendezvous. Pincheira 

 was a capital horseman, and he made all around him equally 

 good, for he invariably shot any one who hesitated to follow 

 him. It was against this man, and other wandering Indian 

 tribes, that Rosas waged the war of extermination. 



September 13th. — We left the baths of Cauquenes, and 

 rejoining the main road, slept at the Rio Claro. From this 

 place we rode to the town of S. Fernando. Before arriving 

 there, the last basin had expanded into a great plain, which 



