322 
VALIDIVIA 
CHAP. 
face looked more like an old woman than a man. I frequently 
presented both of them with cigars; and though ready to 
receive them, and I daresay grateful, they would hardly con¬ 
descend to thank me. A Chilotan Indian would have taken 
off his hat, and given his “ Dios le page!” The travelling 
was very tedious, both from the badness of the roads and from 
the number of great fallen trees, which it was necessary either 
to leap over or to avoid by making long circuits. We slept on 
the road, and next morning reached Valdivia, whence I pro¬ 
ceeded on board. 
A few days afterwards I crossed the bay with a party of 
officers, and landed near the fort called Niebla. The buildings 
were in a most ruinous state, and the gun-carriages quite rotten. 
Mr. Wickham remarked to the commanding officer, that with 
one discharge they would certainly all fall to pieces. The 
poor man, trying to put a good face upon it, gravely replied, 
“No, I am sure, sir, the}/ would stand two!” The Spaniards 
must have intended to have made this place impregnable. 
There is now lying in the middle of the courtyard a little 
mountain of mortar, which rivals in hardness the rock on 
which it is placed. It was brought from Chile, and cost 7000 
dollars. The revolution having broken out prevented its being 
applied to any purpose, and now it remains a monument of the 
fallen greatness of Spain. 
I wanted to go to a house about a mile and a half distant, 
but my guide said it was quite impossible to penetrate the 
wood in a straight line. He offered, however, to lead me, by 
following obscure cattle-tracks, the shortest way: the walk, 
nevertheless, took no less than three hours! This man is 
employed in hunting strayed cattle; yet, well as he must 
know the woods, he was not long since lost for two whole 
days, and had nothing to eat. These facts convey a good 
idea of the impracticability of the forests of these countries. 
A question often occurred to me—how long does any vestige of 
a fallen tree remain ? This man showed me one which a party 
of fugitive royalists had cut down fourteen years ago; and taking 
this as a criterion, I should think a bole a foot and a half in 
diameter would in thirty years be changed into a heap of mould. 
February 20th .—This day has been memorable in the 
annals of Valdivia, for the most severe earthquake experienced 
