282 
CENTRAL CHILE 
CHAP. 
periodical increase during the summer, when 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 lived 
on the spot for several years, ought to be well acquainted with 
the circumstance,—which, if true, certainly is very curious ; for, 
we must suppose that the snow-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 rocks at Cauquenes ; 
and the regularity of the phenomenon would seem to indicate 
that in this district heated rock occurred at a depth not very great. 
One day I rode up the valley to the farthest 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, probably more than six 
thousand feet high. Here, as indeed everywhere 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-caste 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 1 3 th .—We left the baths of Cauquenes, and rejoin¬ 
ing the main road slept at the Rio Claro. From this place we 
rode to the town of S. Fernando. Before arriving there, the last 
land-locked basin had expanded into a great plain, which 
extended so far to the south that the snowy summits of the 
more distant Andes were seen as if above the horizon of the sea. 
S. Fernando is forty leagues from Santiago ; and it was my 
