THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 



285 



increased by a round stone with a hole in it, into which the 

 other end is firmly wedged. It appears probable that the 

 Indians of Chile formerly used some such rude agricultural 

 instrument. 



One day, a German collector in natural history, of the 

 name of Renous, called, and nearly at the same time an old 

 Spanish lawyer. I was amused at being told the conversation 

 which took place between them. Renous speaks Spanish so 

 well, that the old lawyer mistook him for a Chilian. Renous, 

 alluding to me, asked him what he thought of the King of 

 England sending out a collector to their country, to pick up 

 lizards and beetles, and to break stones? The old gentleman 

 thought seriously for some time, and then said, " It is not 

 well, — hay un gato encerrado aqui (there is a cat shut up 

 here). No man is so rich as to send out people to pick up 

 such rubbish. I do not like it: if one of us were to go and 

 do such things in England, do not you think the King of 

 England would very soon send us out of his country ? " And 

 this old gentleman, from his profession, belongs to the better 

 informed and more intelligent classes ! Renous himself, two 

 or three years before, left in a house at San Fernando some 

 caterpillars, under charge of a girl to feed, that they might 

 turn into butterflies. This was rumoured through the town, 

 and at last the padres and governor consulted together, and 

 agreed it must be some heresy. Accordingly, when Renous 

 returned, he was arrested. 



September ipth. — We left Yaquil, and followed the flat 

 valley, formed like that of Quillota, in which the Rio Tin- 

 deridica flows. Even at these few miles south of Santiago 

 the climate is much damper; in consequence there are fine 

 tracts of pasturage, which are not irrigated. (20th.) We 

 followed this valley till it expanded into a great plain, which 

 reaches from the sea to the mountains west of Rancagua. 

 We shortly lost all trees and even bushes ; so that the inhabi- 

 tants are nearly as badly off for firewood as those in the Pam- 

 pas. Never having heard of these plains, I was much 

 surprised at meeting with such scenery in Chile. The plains 

 belong to more than one series of different elevations, and 

 they are traversed by broad flat-bottomed valleys; both of 

 which circumstances, as in Patagonia, bespeak the action of 



