240 A VOYAGE TO BookVIII^ 



is, under ten or fifteen paces, partly renders their 

 dexterity ineffedual but there is very great danger 

 of being entangled when the diilance is thirty or forty. 

 The noofes, or halters, are thongs of a cow's hide, cut 

 round the fl^in, and of a proper breadth. Thefc 

 thongs they twift, and work with fat, till they are of 

 a proper degree of fupplenefs; but fo ftrong, that 

 though when twifled they are not larger than the little 

 iBnger, yet they hold the wildeft bull, when its efforts 

 to efcapc would break a rope of hemp of much larger 

 dimenfions. 



The climate of this city is not eficntially diffe- 

 rent from that of the greateft part of Europe. Win- 

 ter is indeed fomething colder than in the fouthera 

 provinces of Spain, but milder than thofe of the 

 northern •, and the fummer heats proportionably. In 

 winter the inhabitants Icem to be little incommoded 

 by the N. winds, and in fummer the heats are mo- 

 derated by the cooling breezes from the S. The 

 beat is however greater in the city than in the adjacent 

 country, occafioned chiefly by the different difpofition 

 of the ground, being interiedled by various rivers, 

 fome of which are very large, as the Arauco and 

 the Biobio. The larter of which, at a league above 

 its mouth, is veiy near four leagues in breadth. It 

 may, however, in fummer be forded, but not without 

 danger-, in the v/inter it is palTed in balzas. At the 

 fouthern banks of the river, the territories of the wild 

 Indians begin, and near the fame fliore towards that 

 part are the chain of frontier forts, of which a farther 

 account will be given in the ftqucl. The country of 

 this juriicii6i:ion coniiits principally ofexteniive plains, 

 the Cordillera being at a coniiderable diitance to the 

 eaitward, and the whole fpace between it and the fea 

 coafc, one entire and uniform plain, interrupted only 

 by a few eminence^, which are an ornament to the 

 country, and render iIk pcrlpe^fUve of it. the more 

 agrvcablc. 



Ta£ 



