168 



THREE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC 



now an American ship at Catica, loading with copper ore ; the 

 captain fearing that he should be short of water for his voyage, 

 went in his boat twelve miles to leeward, and was absent two 

 days, and obtained only two barrels of water, which he de- 

 clares is so salt and hard, that it will not even boil beans !" 

 The saltness of the springs is owing to the beds of nitre and 

 salt in the neighborhood, through which the water percolates to 

 the place of its exit. Although there is a very complete appa- 

 ratus here for boring, and with a reasonable prospect of suc- 

 cess, it has never been tried. 



In the United States, a tavern and a blacksmith's shop will 

 always form the nucleus for a village. In South America, a 

 church and a billiard table answer the same purpose, and poor 

 is that place indeed, where, during some part of the day, the 

 balls are not heard rolling about. Here there is a tolerable 

 table, but very illy supplied with cues ; and as in all Spanish 

 towns, the pin-game is the only one played by the natives. 

 This game is played with three balls. Five pins of hard wood, 

 called "palillos,'' each five inches long, and a half inch in 

 diameter, are set up in the centre of the table, with sufficient 

 space between them to allow a ball to pass easily through. If 

 the centre pin be knocked down without disturbing either of 

 the others, placed on the corners of a square, it counts five, 

 provided the player's ball first strike the spot ball or that of 

 his antagonist ; if not, he loses as much. The fall of either of 

 the other pins, or all of them together, counts two each. 



There is a tavern here, where all the foreign residents eat, 

 finding it much less trouble, and more economical, than main- 

 taining a private table. Though rather scanty in furniture even 

 for the table, a very good fare is served up in the Spanish 

 style. Some idea of the trouble of house keeping, may be had 

 from a knowledge of the fact, that every thing, except butcher's 

 meat, is brought from Chile and Peru. Every vessel, particu- 

 larly the coasters, from both those countries, brings large quan- 

 tities of vegetables and live stock for this market, and a part 

 of that is sent off to the interior ! Meat and fodder for the cat- 

 tle, used in the mining and commercial operations, are brought 

 from Calama, a town forty leagues to the eastward of the coast f 



