NORTHERN CHILE AND PERU
Coast-road to Coquimbo--Great Loads carried by the
Miners--Coquimbo--Earthquake--Step-formed Terrace--Absence of recent
Deposits--Contemporaneousness of the Tertiary Formations--Excursion up
the Valley--Road to Guasco--Deserts--Valley of Copiapo--Rain and
Earthquakes--Hydrophobia--The Despoblado--Indian Ruins--Probable Change
of Climate--River-bed arched by an Earthquake--Cold Gales of
Wind--Noises from a Hill--Iquique--Salt Alluvium--Nitrate of
Soda--Lima--Unhealthy Country--Ruins of Callao, overthrown by an
Earthquake--Recent Subsidence--Elevated Shells on San Lorenzo, their
decomposition--Plain with embedded Shells and fragments of
Pottery--Antiquity of the Indian Race.
APRIL 27th.--I set out on a journey to Coquimbo, and thence through
Guasco to Copiapo, where Captain Fitz Roy kindly offered to pick me up
in the Beagle. The distance in a straight line along the shore
northward is only 420 miles; but my mode of travelling made it a very
long journey. I bought four horses and two mules, the latter carrying
the luggage on alternate days. The six animals together only cost the
value of twenty-five pounds sterling, and at Copiapo I sold them again
for twenty-three. We travelled in the same independent manner as
before, cooking our own meals, and sleeping in the open air. As we
rode towards the Vino del Mar, I took a farewell view of Valparaiso,
and admired its picturesque appearance. For geological purposes I made
a detour from the high road to the foot of the Bell of Quillota. We
passed through an alluvial district rich in gold, to the neighbourhood
of Limache, where we slept. Washing for gold supports the inhabitants
of numerous hovels, scattered along the sides of each little rivulet;
but, like all those whose gains are uncertain, they are unthrifty in
all their habits, and consequently poor.
28th.--In the afternoon we arrived at a cottage at the foot of the Bell
mountain. The inhabitants were freeholders, which is not very usual in
Chile. They supported themselves on the produce of a garden and a
little field, but were very poor. Capital is here so deficient, that
the people are obliged to sell their green corn while standing in the
field, in order to buy necessaries for the ensuing year. Wheat in
consequence was dearer in the very district of its production than at
Valparaiso, where the contractors live. The next day we joined the
main road to Coquimbo. At night there was a very light shower of rain:
this was the first drop that had fallen since the heavy rain of
September 11th and 12th, which detained me a prisoner at the Baths of
Cauquenes. The interval was seven and a half months; but the rain this
year in Chile was rather later than usual. The distant Andes were now
covered by a thick mass of snow, and were a glorious sight.
May 2nd.--The road continued to follow the coast, at no great distance
from the sea. The few trees and bushes which are common in central
Chile decreased rapidly in numbers, and were replaced by a tall plant,
something like a yucca in appearance. The surface of the country, on a
small scale, was singularly broken and irregular; abrupt little peaks
of rock rising out of small plains or basins. The indented coast and
the bottom of the neighbouring sea, studded with breakers, would, if
converted into dry land, present similar forms; and such a conversion
without doubt has taken place in the part over which we rode.
3rd.--Quilimari to Conchalee. The country became more and more barren.
In the valleys there was scarcely sufficient water for any irrigation;
and the intermediate land was quite bare, not supporting even goats. In
the spring, after the winter showers, a thin pasture rapidly springs
up, and cattle are then driven down from the Cordillera to graze for a
short time. It is curious to observe how the seeds of the grass and
other plants seem to accommodate themselves, as if by an acquired
habit, to the quantity of rain which falls upon different parts of this
coast. One shower far northward at Copiapo produces as great an effect
on the vegetation, as two at Guasco, and three or four in this
district. At Valparaiso a winter so dry as greatly to injure the
pasture, would at Guasco produce the most unusual abundance. Proceeding
northward, the quantity of rain does not appear to decrease in strict
proportion to the latitude. At Conchalee, which is only 67 miles north
of Valparaiso, rain is not expected till the end of May; whereas at
Valparaiso some generally falls early in April: the annual quantity is
likewise small in proportion to the lateness of the season at which it
commences.
4th.--Finding the coast-road devoid of interest of any kind, we turned
inland towards the mining district and valley of Illapel. This valley,
like every other in Chile, is level, broad, and very fertile: it is
bordered on each side, either by cliffs of stratified shingle, or by
bare rocky mountains. Above the straight line of the uppermost
irrigating ditch, all is brown as on a high road; while all below is of
as bright a green as verdigris, from the beds of alfalfa, a kind of
clover. We proceeded to Los Hornos, another mining district, where the
principal hill was drilled with holes, like a great ants'-nest. The
Chilian miners are a peculiar race of men in their habits. Living for
weeks together in the most desolate spots, when they descend to the
villages on feast-days, there is no excess of extravagance into which
they do not run. They sometimes gain a considerable sum, and then,
like sailors with prize-money, they try how soon they can contrive to
squander it. They drink excessively, buy quantities of clothes, and in
a few days return penniless to their miserable abodes, there to work
harder than beasts of burden. This thoughtlessness, as with sailors,
is evidently the result of a similar manner of life. Their daily food
is found them, and they acquire no habits of carefulness: moreover,
temptation and the means of yielding to it are placed in their power at
the same time. On the other hand, in Cornwall, and some other parts of
England, where the system of selling part of the vein is followed, the
miners, from being obliged to act and think for themselves, are a
singularly intelligent and well-conducted set of men.
The dress of the Chilian miner is peculiar and rather picturesque He
wears a very long shirt of some dark-coloured baize, with a leathern
apron; the whole being fastened round his waist by a bright-coloured
sash. His trousers are very broad, and his small cap of scarlet cloth
is made to fit the head closely. We met a party of these miners in
full costume, carrying the body of one of their companions to be
buried. They marched at a very quick trot, four men supporting the
corpse. One set having run as hard as they could for about two hundred
yards, were relieved by four others, who had previously dashed on ahead
on horseback. Thus they proceeded, encouraging each other by wild
cries: altogether the scene formed a most strange funeral.
We continued travelling northward, in a zigzag line; sometimes stopping
a day to geologize. The country was so thinly inhabited, and the track
so obscure, that we often had difficulty in finding our way. On the
12th I stayed at some mines. The ore in this case was not considered
particularly good, but from being abundant it was supposed the mine
would sell for about thirty or forty thousand dollars (that is, 6000 or
8000 pounds sterling); yet it had been bought by one of the English
Associations for an ounce of gold (3l. 8s.). The ore is yellow
pyrites, which, as I have already remarked, before the arrival of the
English, was not supposed to contain a particle of copper. On a scale
of profits nearly as great as in the above instance, piles of cinders,
abounding with minute globules of metallic copper, were purchased; yet
with these advantages, the mining associations, as is well known,
contrived to lose immense sums of money. The folly of the greater
number of the commissioners and shareholders amounted to
infatuation;--a thousand pounds per annum given in some cases to
entertain the Chilian authorities; libraries of well-bound geological
books; miners brought out for particular metals, as tin, which are not
found in Chile; contracts to supply the miners with milk, in parts
where there are no cows; machinery, where it could not possibly be
used; and a hundred similar arrangements, bore witness to our
absurdity, and to this day afford amusement to the natives. Yet there
can be no doubt, that the same capital well employed in these mines
would have yielded an immense return, a confidential man of business, a
practical miner and assayer, would have been all that was required.
Captain Head has described the wonderful load which the "Apires," truly
beasts of burden, carry up from the deepest mines. I confess I thought
the account exaggerated: so that I was glad to take an opportunity of
weighing one of the loads, which I picked out by hazard. It required
considerable exertion on my part, when standing directly over it, to
lift it from the ground. The load was considered under weight when
found to be 197 pounds. The apire had carried this up eighty
perpendicular yards,--part of the way by a steep passage, but the
greater part up notched poles, placed in a zigzag line up the shaft.
According to the general regulation, the apire is not allowed to halt
for breath, except the mine is six hundred feet deep. The average load
is considered as rather more than 200 pounds, and I have been assured
that one of 300 pounds (twenty-two stone and a half) by way of a trial
has been brought up from the deepest mine! At this time the apires were
bringing up the usual load twelve times in the day; that is 2400 pounds
from eighty yards deep; and they were employed in the intervals in
breaking and picking ore.
These men, excepting from accidents, are healthy, and appear cheerful.
Their bodies are not very muscular. They rarely eat meat once a week,
and never oftener, and then only the hard dry charqui. Although with a
knowledge that the labour was voluntary, it was nevertheless quite
revolting to see the state in which they reached the mouth of the mine;
their bodies bent forward, leaning with their arms on the steps, their
legs bowed, their muscles quivering, the perspiration streaming from
their faces over their breasts, their nostrils distended, the corners
of their mouth forcibly drawn back, and the expulsion of their breath
most laborious. Each time they draw their breath, they utter an
articulate cry of "ay-ay," which ends in a sound rising from deep in
the chest, but shrill like the note of a fife. After staggering to the
pile of ore, they emptied the "carpacho;" in two or three seconds
recovering their breath, they wiped the sweat from their brows, and
apparently quite fresh descended the mine again at a quick pace. This
appears to me a wonderful instance of the amount of labour which habit,
for it can be nothing else, will enable a man to endure.
In the evening, talking with the _mayor-domo_ of these mines about the
number of foreigners now scattered over the whole country, he told me
that, though quite a young man, he remembers when he was a boy at
school at Coquimbo, a holiday being given to see the captain of an
English ship, who was brought to the city to speak to the governor. He
believes that nothing would have induced any boy in the school, himself
included, to have gone close to the Englishman; so deeply had they been
impressed with an idea of the heresy, contamination, and evil to be
derived from contact with such a person. To this day they relate the
atrocious actions of the bucaniers; and especially of one man, who took
away the figure of the Virgin Mary, and returned the year after for
that of St. Joseph, saying it was a pity the lady should not have a
husband. I heard also of an old lady who, at a dinner at Coquimbo,
remarked how wonderfully strange it was that she should have lived to
dine in the same room with an Englishman; for she remembered as a girl,
that twice, at the mere cry of "Los Ingleses," every soul, carrying
what valuables they could, had taken to the mountains.
14th.--We reached Coquimbo, where we stayed a few days. The town is
remarkable for nothing but its extreme quietness. It is said to
contain from 6000 to 8000 inhabitants. On the morning of the 17th it
rained lightly, the first time this year, for about five hours. The
farmers, who plant corn near the sea-coast where the atmosphere is most
humid, taking advantage of this shower, would break up the ground;
after a second they would put the seed in; and if a third shower should
fall, they would reap a good harvest in the spring. It was interesting
to watch the effect of this trifling amount of moisture. Twelve hours
afterwards the ground appeared as dry as ever; yet after an interval of
ten days, all the hills were faintly tinged with green patches; the
grass being sparingly scattered in hair-like fibres a full inch in
length. Before this shower every part of the surface was bare as on a
high road.
In the evening, Captain Fitz Roy and myself were dining with Mr.
Edwards, an English resident well known for his hospitality by all who
have visited Coquimbo, when a sharp earthquake happened. I heard the
forecoming rumble, but from the screams of the ladies, the running of
the servants, and the rush of several of the gentlemen to the doorway,
I could not distinguish the motion. Some of the women afterwards were
crying with terror, and one gentleman said he should not be able to
sleep all night, or if he did, it would only be to dream of falling
houses. The father of this person had lately lost all his property at
Talcahuano, and he himself had only just escaped a falling roof at
Valparaiso, in 1822. He mentioned a curious coincidence which then
happened: he was playing at cards, when a German, one of the party, got
up, and said he would never sit in a room in these countries with the
door shut, as owing to his having done so, he had nearly lost his life
at Copiapo. Accordingly he opened the door; and no sooner had he done
this, than he cried out, "Here it comes again!" and the famous shock
commenced. The whole party escaped. The danger in an earthquake is
not from the time lost in opening the door, but from the chance of its
becoming jammed by the movement of the walls.
It is impossible to be much surprised at the fear which natives and old
residents, though some of them known to be men of great command of
mind, so generally experience during earthquakes. I think, however,
this excess of panic may be partly attributed to a want of habit in
governing their fear, as it is not a feeling they are ashamed of.
Indeed, the natives do not like to see a person indifferent. I heard
of two Englishmen who, sleeping in the open air during a smart shock,
knowing that there was no danger, did not rise. The natives cried out
indignantly, "Look at those heretics, they do not even get out of their
beds!"
I spent some days in examining the step-formed terraces of shingle,
first noticed by Captain B. Hall, and believed by Mr. Lyell to have
been formed by the sea, during the gradual rising of the land. This
certainly is the true explanation, for I found numerous shells of
existing species on these terraces. Five narrow, gently sloping,
fringe-like terraces rise one behind the other, and where best
developed are formed of shingle: they front the bay, and sweep up both
sides of the valley. At Guasco, north of Coquimbo, the phenomenon is
displayed on a much grander scale, so as to strike with surprise even
some of the inhabitants. The terraces are there much broader, and may
be called plains, in some parts there are six of them, but generally
only five; they run up the valley for thirty-seven miles from the
coast. These step-formed terraces or fringes closely resemble those in
the valley of S. Cruz, and, except in being on a smaller scale, those
great ones along the whole coast-line of Patagonia. They have
undoubtedly been formed by the denuding power of the sea, during long
periods of rest in the gradual elevation of the continent.
Shells of many existing species not only lie on the surface of the
terraces at Coquimbo (to a height of 250 feet), but are embedded in a
friable calcareous rock, which in some places is as much as between
twenty and thirty feet in thickness, but is of little extent. These
modern beds rest on an ancient tertiary formation containing shells,
apparently all extinct. Although I examined so many hundred miles of
coast on the Pacific, as well as Atlantic side of the continent, I
found no regular strata containing sea-shells of recent species,
excepting at this place, and at a few points northward on the road to
Guasco. This fact appears to me highly remarkable; for the explanation
generally given by geologists, of the absence in any district of
stratified fossiliferous deposits of a given period, namely, that the
surface then existed as dry land, is not here applicable; for we know
from the shells strewed on the surface and embedded in loose sand or
mould that the land for thousands of miles along both coasts has lately
been submerged. The explanation, no doubt, must be sought in the fact,
that the whole southern part of the continent has been for a long time
slowly rising; and therefore that all matter deposited along shore in
shallow water, must have been soon brought up and slowly exposed to the
wearing action of the sea-beach; and it is only in comparatively
shallow water that the greater number of marine organic beings can
flourish, and in such water it is obviously impossible that strata of
any great thickness can accumulate. To show the vast power of the
wearing action of sea-beaches, we need only appeal to the great cliffs
along the present coast of Patagonia, and to the escarpments or ancient
sea-cliffs at different levels, one above another, on that same line of
coast.
The old underlying tertiary formation at Coquimbo, appears to be of
about the same age with several deposits on the coast of Chile (of
which that of Navedad is the principal one), and with the great
formation of Patagonia. Both at Navedad and in Patagonia there is
evidence, that since the shells (a list of which has been seen by
Professor E. Forbes) there entombed were living, there has been a
subsidence of several hundred feet, as well as an ensuing elevation. It
may naturally be asked, how it comes that, although no extensive
fossiliferous deposits of the recent period, nor of any period
intermediate between it and the ancient tertiary epoch, have been
preserved on either side of the continent, yet that at this ancient
tertiary epoch, sedimentary matter containing fossil remains, should
have been deposited and preserved at different points in north and
south lines, over a space of 1100 miles on the shores of the Pacific,
and of at least 1350 miles on the shores of the Atlantic, and in an
east and west line of 700 miles across the widest part of the
continent? I believe the explanation is not difficult, and that it is
perhaps applicable to nearly analogous facts observed in other quarters
of the world. Considering the enormous power of denudation which the
sea possesses, as shown by numberless facts, it is not probable that a
sedimentary deposit, when being upraised, could pass through the ordeal
of the beach, so as to be preserved in sufficient masses to last to a
distant period, without it were originally of wide extent and of
considerable thickness: now it is impossible on a moderately shallow
bottom, which alone is favourable to most living creatures, that a
thick and widely extended covering of sediment could be spread out,
without the bottom sank down to receive the successive layers. This
seems to have actually taken place at about the same period in southern
Patagonia and Chile, though these places are a thousand miles apart.
Hence, if prolonged movements of approximately contemporaneous
subsidence are generally widely extensive, as I am strongly inclined to
believe from my examination of the Coral Reefs of the great oceans--or
if, confining our view to South America, the subsiding movements have
been co-extensive with those of elevation, by which, within the same
period of existing shells, the shores of Peru, Chile, Tierra del Fuego,
Patagonia, and La Plata have been upraised--then we can see that at the
same time, at far distant points, circumstances would have been
favourable to the formation of fossiliferous deposits of wide extent
and of considerable thickness; and such deposits, consequently, would
have a good chance of resisting the wear and tear of successive
beach-lines, and of lasting to a future epoch.
May 21st.--I set out in company with Don Jose Edwards to the
silver-mine of Arqueros, and thence up the valley of Coquimbo. Passing
through a mountainous country, we reached by nightfall the mines
belonging to Mr. Edwards. I enjoyed my night's rest here from a reason
which will not be fully appreciated in England, namely, the absence of
fleas! The rooms in Coquimbo swarm with them; but they will not live
here at the height of only three or four thousand feet: it can scarcely
be the trifling diminution of temperature, but some other cause which
destroys these troublesome insects at this place. The mines are now in
a bad state, though they formerly yielded about 2000 pounds in weight
of silver a year. It has been said that "a person with a copper-mine
will gain; with silver he may gain; but with gold he is sure to lose."
This is not true: all the large Chilian fortunes have been made by
mines of the more precious metals. A short time since an English
physician returned to England from Copiapo, taking with him the profits
of one share of a silver-mine, which amounted to about 24,000 pounds
sterling. No doubt a copper-mine with care is a sure game, whereas the
other is gambling, or rather taking a ticket in a lottery. The owners
lose great quantities of rich ores; for no precautions can prevent
robberies. I heard of a gentleman laying a bet with another, that one
of his men should rob him before his face. The ore when brought out of
the mine is broken into pieces, and the useless stone thrown on one
side. A couple of the miners who were thus employed, pitched, as if by
accident, two fragments away at the same moment, and then cried out for
a joke "Let us see which rolls furthest." The owner, who was standing
by, bet a cigar with his friend on the race. The miner by this means
watched the very point amongst the rubbish where the stone lay. In the
evening he picked it up and carried it to his master, showing him a
rich mass of silver-ore, and saying, "This was the stone on which you
won a cigar by its rolling so far."
May 23rd.--We descended into the fertile valley of Coquimbo, and
followed it till we reached an Hacienda belonging to a relation of Don
Jose, where we stayed the next day. I then rode one day's journey
further, to see what were declared to be some petrified shells and
beans, which latter turned out to be small quartz pebbles. We passed
through several small villages; and the valley was beautifully
cultivated, and the whole scenery very grand. We were here near the
main Cordillera, and the surrounding hills were lofty. In all parts of
northern Chile, fruit trees produce much more abundantly at a
considerable height near the Andes than in the lower country. The figs
and grapes of this district are famous for their excellence, and are
cultivated to a great extent. This valley is, perhaps, the most
productive one north of Quillota. I believe it contains, including
Coquimbo, 25,000 inhabitants. The next day I returned to the Hacienda,
and thence, together with Don Jose, to Coquimbo.
June 2nd.--We set out for the valley of Guasco, following the
coast-road, which was considered rather less desert than the other. Our
first day's ride was to a solitary house, called Yerba Buena, where
there was pasture for our horses. The shower mentioned as having
fallen, a fortnight ago, only reached about half-way to Guasco; we had,
therefore, in the first part of our journey a most faint tinge of
green, which soon faded quite away. Even where brightest, it was
scarcely sufficient to remind one of the fresh turf and budding flowers
of the spring of other countries. While travelling through these
deserts one feels like a prisoner shut up in a gloomy court, who longs
to see something green and to smell a moist atmosphere.
June 3rd.--Yerba Buena to Carizal. During the first part of the day we
crossed a mountainous rocky desert, and afterwards a long deep sandy
plain, strewed with broken sea-shells. There was very little water, and
that little saline: the whole country, from the coast to the
Cordillera, is an uninhabited desert. I saw traces only of one living
animal in abundance, namely, the shells of a Bulimus, which were
collected together in extraordinary numbers on the driest spots. In
the spring one humble little plant sends out a few leaves, and on these
the snails feed. As they are seen only very early in the morning, when
the ground is slightly damp with dew, the Guascos believe that they are
bred from it. I have observed in other places that extremely dry and
sterile districts, where the soil is calcareous, are extraordinarily
favourable to land-shells. At Carizal there were a few cottages, some
brackish water, and a trace of cultivation: but it was with difficulty
that we purchased a little corn and straw for our horses.
4th.--Carizal to Sauce. We continued to ride over desert plains,
tenanted by large herds of guanaco. We crossed also the valley of
Chaneral; which, although the most fertile one between Guasco and
Coquimbo, is very narrow, and produces so little pasture, that we could
not purchase any for our horses. At Sauce we found a very civil old
gentleman, superintendent of a copper-smelting furnace. As an especial
favour, he allowed me to purchase at a high price an armful of dirty
straw, which was all the poor horses had for supper after their long
day's journey. Few smelting-furnaces are now at work in any part of
Chile; it is found more profitable, on account of the extreme scarcity
of firewood, and from the Chilian method of reduction being so
unskilful, to ship the ore for Swansea. The next day we crossed some
mountains to Freyrina, in the valley of Guasco. During each day's ride
further northward, the vegetation became more and more scanty; even the
great chandelier-like cactus was here replaced by a different and much
smaller species. During the winter months, both in northern Chile and
in Peru, a uniform bank of clouds hangs, at no great height, over the
Pacific. From the mountains we had a very striking view of this white
and brilliant aerial-field, which sent arms up the valleys, leaving
islands and promontories in the same manner, as the sea does in the
Chonos archipelago and in Tierra del Fuego.
We stayed two days at Freyrina. In the valley of Guasco there are four
small towns. At the mouth there is the port, a spot entirely desert,
and without any water in the immediate neighbourhood. Five leagues
higher up stands Freyrina, a long straggling village, with decent
whitewashed houses. Again, ten leagues further up Ballenar is situated,
and above this Guasco Alto, a horticultural village, famous for its
dried fruit. On a clear day the view up the valley is very fine; the
straight opening terminates in the far-distant snowy Cordillera; on
each side an infinity of crossing-lines are blended together in a
beautiful haze. The foreground is singular from the number of parallel
and step-formed terraces; and the included strip of green valley, with
its willow-bushes, is contrasted on both hands with the naked hills.
That the surrounding country was most barren will be readily believed,
when it is known that a shower of rain had not fallen during the last
thirteen months. The inhabitants heard with the greatest envy of the
rain at Coquimbo; from the appearance of the sky they had hopes of
equally good fortune, which, a fortnight afterwards, were realized. I
was at Copiapo at the time; and there the people, with equal envy,
talked of the abundant rain at Guasco. After two or three very dry
years, perhaps with not more than one shower during the whole time, a
rainy year generally follows; and this does more harm than even the
drought. The rivers swell, and cover with gravel and sand the narrow
strips of ground, which alone are fit for cultivation. The floods also
injure the irrigating ditches. Great devastation had thus been caused
three years ago.
June 8th.--We rode on to Ballenar, which takes its name from Ballenagh
in Ireland, the birthplace of the family of O'Higgins, who, under the
Spanish government, were presidents and generals in Chile. As the rocky
mountains on each hand were concealed by clouds, the terrace-like
plains gave to the valley an appearance like that of Santa Cruz in
Patagonia. After spending one day at Ballenar I set out, on the 10th,
for the upper part of the valley of Copiapo. We rode all day over an
uninteresting country. I am tired of repeating the epithets barren and
sterile. These words, however, as commonly used, are comparative; I
have always applied them to the plains of Patagonia, which can boast of
spiny bushes and some tufts of grass; and this is absolute fertility,
as compared with northern Chile. Here again, there are not many spaces
of two hundred yards square, where some little bush, cactus or lichen,
may not be discovered by careful examination; and in the soil seeds lie
dormant ready to spring up during the first rainy winter. In Peru real
deserts occur over wide tracts of country. In the evening we arrived at
a valley, in which the bed of the streamlet was damp: following it up,
we came to tolerably good water. During the night, the stream, from not
being evaporated and absorbed so quickly, flows a league lower down
than during the day. Sticks were plentiful for firewood, so that it
was a good place to bivouac for us; but for the poor animals there was
not a mouthful to eat.
June 11th.--We rode without stopping for twelve hours till we reached
an old smelting-furnace, where there was water and firewood; but our
horses again had nothing to eat, being shut up in an old courtyard. The
line of road was hilly, and the distant views interesting, from the
varied colours of the bare mountains. It was almost a pity to see the
sun shining constantly over so useless a country; such splendid weather
ought to have brightened fields and pretty gardens. The next day we
reached the valley of Copiapo. I was heartily glad of it; for the whole
journey was a continued source of anxiety; it was most disagreeable to
hear, whilst eating our own suppers, our horses gnawing the posts to
which they were tied, and to have no means of relieving their hunger.
To all appearance, however, the animals were quite fresh; and no one
could have told that they had eaten nothing for the last fifty-five
hours.
I had a letter of introduction to Mr. Bingley, who received me very
kindly at the Hacienda of Potrero Seco. This estate is between twenty
and thirty miles long, but very narrow, being generally only two fields
wide, one on each side the river. In some parts the estate is of no
width, that is to say, the land cannot be irrigated, and therefore is
valueless, like the surrounding rocky desert. The small quantity of
cultivated land in the whole line of valley, does not so much depend on
inequalities of level, and consequent unfitness for irrigation, as on
the small supply of water. The river this year was remarkably full:
here, high up the valley, it reached to the horse's belly, and was
about fifteen yards wide, and rapid; lower down it becomes smaller and
smaller, and is generally quite lost, as happened during one period of
thirty years, so that not a drop entered the sea. The inhabitants
watch a storm over the Cordillera with great interest; as one good fall
of snow provides them with water for the ensuing year. This is of
infinitely more consequence than rain in the lower country. Rain, as
often as it falls, which is about once in every two or three years, is
a great advantage, because the cattle and mules can for some time
afterwards find a little pasture in the mountains. But without snow on
the Andes, desolation extends throughout the valley. It is on record
that three times nearly all the inhabitants have been obliged to
emigrate to the south. This year there was plenty of water, and every
man irrigated his ground as much as he chose; but it has frequently
been necessary to post soldiers at the sluices, to see that each estate
took only its proper allowance during so many hours in the week. The
valley is said to contain 12,000 souls, but its produce is sufficient
only for three months in the year; the rest of the supply being drawn
from Valparaiso and the south. Before the discovery of the famous
silver-mines of Chanuncillo, Copiapo was in a rapid state of decay; but
now it is in a very thriving condition; and the town, which was
completely overthrown by an earthquake, has been rebuilt.
The valley of Copiapo, forming a mere ribbon of green in a desert, runs
in a very southerly direction; so that it is of considerable length to
its source in the Cordillera. The valleys of Guasco and Copiapo may
both be considered as long narrow islands, separated from the rest of
Chile by deserts of rock instead of by salt water. Northward of these,
there is one other very miserable valley, called Paposo, which contains
about two hundred souls; and then there extends the real desert of
Atacama--a barrier far worse than the most turbulent ocean. After
staying a few days at Potrero Seco, I proceeded up the valley to the
house of Don Benito Cruz, to whom I had a letter of introduction. I
found him most hospitable; indeed it is impossible to bear too strong
testimony to the kindness with which travellers are received in almost
every part of South America. The next day I hired some mules to take
me by the ravine of Jolquera into the central Cordillera. On the
second night the weather seemed to foretell a storm of snow or rain,
and whilst lying in our beds we felt a trifling shock of an earthquake.
The connection between earthquakes and the weather has been often
disputed: it appears to me to be a point of great interest, which is
little understood. Humboldt has remarked in one part of the Personal
Narrative, [1] that it would be difficult for any person who had long
resided in New Andalusia, or in Lower Peru, to deny that there exists
some connection between these phenomena: in another part, however he
seems to think the connection fanciful. At Guayaquil it is said that a
heavy shower in the dry season is invariably followed by an earthquake.
In Northern Chile, from the extreme infrequency of rain, or even of
weather foreboding rain, the probability of accidental coincidences
becomes very small; yet the inhabitants are here most firmly convinced
of some connection between the state of the atmosphere and of the
trembling of the ground: I was much struck by this when mentioning to
some people at Copiapo that there had been a sharp shock at Coquimbo:
they immediately cried out, "How fortunate! there will be plenty of
pasture there this year." To their minds an earthquake foretold rain as
surely as rain foretold abundant pasture. Certainly it did so happen
that on the very day of the earthquake, that shower of rain fell, which
I have described as in ten days' time producing a thin sprinkling of
grass. At other times rain has followed earthquakes at a period of the
year when it is a far greater prodigy than the earthquake itself: this
happened after the shock of November, 1822, and again in 1829, at
Valparaiso; also after that of September, 1833, at Tacna. A person must
be somewhat habituated to the climate of these countries to perceive
the extreme improbability of rain falling at such seasons, except as a
consequence of some law quite unconnected with the ordinary course of
the weather. In the cases of great volcanic eruptions, as that of
Coseguina, where torrents of rain fell at a time of the year most
unusual for it, and "almost unprecedented in Central America," it is
not difficult to understand that the volumes of vapour and clouds of
ashes might have disturbed the atmospheric equilibrium. Humboldt
extends this view to the case of earthquakes unaccompanied by
eruptions; but I can hardly conceive it possible, that the small
quantity of aeriform fluids which then escape from the fissured ground,
can produce such remarkable effects. There appears much probability in
the view first proposed by Mr. P. Scrope, that when the barometer is
low, and when rain might naturally be expected to fall, the diminished
pressure of the atmosphere over a wide extent of country, might well
determine the precise day on which the earth, already stretched to the
utmost by the subterranean forces, should yield, crack, and
consequently tremble. It is, however, doubtful how far this idea will
explain the circumstances of torrents of rain falling in the dry season
during several days, after an earthquake unaccompanied by an eruption;
such cases seem to bespeak some more intimate connection between the
atmospheric and subterranean regions.
Finding little of interest in this part of the ravine, we retraced our
steps to the house of Don Benito, where I stayed two days collecting
fossil shells and wood. Great prostrate silicified trunks of trees,
embedded in a conglomerate, were extraordinarily numerous. I measured
one, which was fifteen feet in circumference: how surprising it is that
every atom of the woody matter in this great cylinder should have been
removed and replaced by silex so perfectly, that each vessel and pore
is preserved! These trees flourished at about the period of our lower
chalk; they all belonged to the fir-tribe. It was amusing to hear the
inhabitants discussing the nature of the fossil shells which I
collected, almost in the same terms as were used a century ago in
Europe,--namely, whether or not they had been thus "born by nature." My
geological examination of the country generally created a good deal of
surprise amongst the Chilenos: it was long before they could be
convinced that I was not hunting for mines. This was sometimes
troublesome: I found the most ready way of explaining my employment,
was to ask them how it was that they themselves were not curious
concerning earthquakes and volcanos?--why some springs were hot and
others cold?--why there were mountains in Chile, and not a hill in La
Plata? These bare questions at once satisfied and silenced the greater
number; some, however (like a few in England who are a century
behindhand), thought that all such inquiries were useless and impious;
and that it was quite sufficient that God had thus made the mountains.
An order had recently been issued that all stray dogs should be killed,
and we saw many lying dead on the road. A great number had lately gone
mad, and several men had been bitten and had died in consequence. On
several occasions hydrophobia has prevailed in this valley. It is
remarkable thus to find so strange and dreadful a disease, appearing
time after time in the same isolated spot. It has been remarked that
certain villages in England are in like manner much more subject to
this visitation than others. Dr. Unanue states that hydrophobia was
first known in South America in 1803: this statement is corroborated by
Azara and Ulloa having never heard of it in their time. Dr. Unanue
says that it broke out in Central America, and slowly travelled
southward. It reached Arequipa in 1807; and it is said that some men
there, who had not been bitten, were affected, as were some negroes,
who had eaten a bullock which had died of hydrophobia. At Ica
forty-two people thus miserably perished. The disease came on between
twelve and ninety days after the bite; and in those cases where it did
come on, death ensued invariably within five days. After 1808, a long
interval ensued without any cases. On inquiry, I did not hear of
hydrophobia in Van Diemen's Land, or in Australia; and Burchell says,
that during the five years he was at the Cape of Good Hope, he never
heard of an instance of it. Webster asserts that at the Azores
hydrophobia has never occurred; and the same assertion has been made
with respect to Mauritius and St. Helena. [2] In so strange a disease
some information might possibly be gained by considering the
circumstances under which it originates in distant climates; for it is
improbable that a dog already bitten, should have been brought to these
distant countries.
At night, a stranger arrived at the house of Don Benito, and asked
permission to sleep there. He said he had been wandering about the
mountains for seventeen days, having lost his way. He started from
Guasco, and being accustomed to travelling in the Cordillera, did not
expect any difficulty in following the track to Copiapo; but he soon
became involved in a labyrinth of mountains, whence he could not
escape. Some of his mules had fallen over precipices, and he had been
in great distress. His chief difficulty arose from not knowing where
to find water in the lower country, so that he was obliged to keep
bordering the central ranges.
We returned down the valley, and on the 22nd reached the town of
Copiapo. The lower part of the valley is broad, forming a fine plain
like that of Quillota. The town covers a considerable space of ground,
each house possessing a garden: but it is an uncomfortable place, and
the dwellings are poorly furnished. Every one seems bent on the one
object of making money, and then migrating as quickly as possible. All
the inhabitants are more or less directly concerned with mines; and
mines and ores are the sole subjects of conversation. Necessaries of
all sorts are extremely dear; as the distance from the town to the port
is eighteen leagues, and the land carriage very expensive. A fowl
costs five or six shillings; meat is nearly as dear as in England;
firewood, or rather sticks, are brought on donkeys from a distance of
two and three days' journey within the Cordillera; and pasturage for
animals is a shilling a day: all this for South America is wonderfully
exorbitant.
June 26th.--I hired a guide and eight mules to take me into the
Cordillera by a different line from my last excursion. As the country
was utterly desert, we took a cargo and a half of barley mixed with
chopped straw. About two leagues above the town a broad valley called
the "Despoblado," or uninhabited, branches off from that one by which
we had arrived. Although a valley of the grandest dimensions, and
leading to a pass across the Cordillera, yet it is completely dry,
excepting perhaps for a few days during some very rainy winter. The
sides of the crumbling mountains were furrowed by scarcely any ravines;
and the bottom of the main valley, filled with shingle, was smooth and
nearly level. No considerable torrent could ever have flowed down this
bed of shingle; for if it had, a great cliff-bounded channel, as in all
the southern valleys, would assuredly have been formed. I feel little
doubt that this valley, as well as those mentioned by travellers in
Peru, were left in the state we now see them by the waves of the sea,
as the land slowly rose. I observed in one place, where the Despoblado
was joined by a ravine (which in almost any other chain would have been
called a grand valley), that its bed, though composed merely of sand
and gravel, was higher than that of its tributary. A mere rivulet of
water, in the course of an hour, would have cut a channel for itself;
but it was evident that ages had passed away, and no such rivulet had
drained this great tributary. It was curious to behold the machinery,
if such a term may be used, for the drainage, all, with the last
trifling exception, perfect, yet without any signs of action. Every
one must have remarked how mud-banks, left by the retiring tide,
imitate in miniature a country with hill and dale; and here we have the
original model in rock, formed as the continent rose during the secular
retirement of the ocean, instead of during the ebbing and flowing of
the tides. If a shower of rain falls on the mud-bank, when left dry,
it deepens the already-formed shallow lines of excavation; and so it is
with the rain of successive centuries on the bank of rock and soil,
which we call a continent.
We rode on after it was dark, till we reached a side ravine with a
small well, called "Agua amarga." The water deserved its name, for
besides being saline it was most offensively putrid and bitter; so that
we could not force ourselves to drink either tea or mate. I suppose
the distance from the river of Copiapo to this spot was at least
twenty-five or thirty English miles; in the whole space there was not a
single drop of water, the country deserving the name of desert in the
strictest sense. Yet about half way we passed some old Indian ruins
near Punta Gorda: I noticed also in front of some of the valleys, which
branch off from the Despoblado, two piles of stones placed a little way
apart, and directed so as to point up the mouths of these small
valleys. My companions knew nothing about them, and only answered my
queries by their imperturbable "quien sabe?"
I observed Indian ruins in several parts of the Cordillera: the most
perfect which I saw, were the Ruinas de Tambillos, in the Uspallata
Pass. Small square rooms were there huddled together in separate
groups: some of the doorways were yet standing; they were formed by a
cross slab of stone only about three feet high. Ulloa has remarked on
the lowness of the doors in the ancient Peruvian dwellings. These
houses, when perfect, must have been capable of containing a
considerable number of persons. Tradition says, that they were used as
halting-places for the Incas, when they crossed the mountains. Traces
of Indian habitations have been discovered in many other parts, where
it does not appear probable that they were used as mere resting-places,
but yet where the land is as utterly unfit for any kind of cultivation,
as it is near the Tambillos or at the Incas Bridge, or in the Portillo
Pass, at all which places I saw ruins. In the ravine of Jajuel, near
Aconcagua, where there is no pass, I heard of remains of houses
situated at a great height, where it is extremely cold and sterile. At
first I imagined that these buildings had been places of refuge, built
by the Indians on the first arrival of the Spaniards; but I have since
been inclined to speculate on the probability of a small change of
climate.
In this northern part of Chile, within the Cordillera, old Indian
houses are said to be especially numerous: by digging amongst the
ruins, bits of woollen articles, instruments of precious metals, and
heads of Indian corn, are not unfrequently discovered: an arrow-head
made of agate, and of precisely the same form with those now used in
Tierra del Fuego, was given me. I am aware that the Peruvian Indians
now frequently inhabit most lofty and bleak situations; but at Copiapo
I was assured by men who had spent their lives in travelling through
the Andes, that there were very many (muchisimas) buildings at heights
so great as almost to border upon the perpetual snow, and in parts
where there exist no passes, and where the land produces absolutely
nothing, and what is still more extraordinary, where there is no water.
Nevertheless it is the opinion of the people of the country (although
they are much puzzled by the circumstance), that, from the appearance
of the houses, the Indians must have used them as places of residence.
In this valley, at Punta Gorda, the remains consisted of seven or eight
square little rooms, which were of a similar form with those at
Tambillos, but built chiefly of mud, which the present inhabitants
cannot, either here or, according to Ulloa, in Peru, imitate in
durability. They were situated in the most conspicuous and defenceless
position, at the bottom of the flat broad valley. There was no water
nearer than three or four leagues, and that only in very small
quantity, and bad: the soil was absolutely sterile; I looked in vain
even for a lichen adhering to the rocks. At the present day, with the
advantage of beasts of burden, a mine, unless it were very rich, could
scarcely be worked here with profit. Yet the Indians formerly chose it
as a place of residence! If at the present time two or three showers
of rain were to fall annually, instead of one, as now is the case
during as many years, a small rill of water would probably be formed in
this great valley; and then, by irrigation (which was formerly so well
understood by the Indians), the soil would easily be rendered
sufficiently productive to support a few families.
I have convincing proofs that this part of the continent of South
America has been elevated near the coast at least from 400 to 500, and
in some parts from 1000 to 1300 feet, since the epoch of existing
shells; and further inland the rise possibly may have been greater. As
the peculiarly arid character of the climate is evidently a consequence
of the height of the Cordillera, we may feel almost sure that before
the later elevations, the atmosphere could not have been so completely
drained of its moisture as it now is; and as the rise has been gradual,
so would have been the change in climate. On this notion of a change
of climate since the buildings were inhabited, the ruins must be of
extreme antiquity, but I do not think their preservation under the
Chilian climate any great difficulty. We must also admit on this
notion (and this perhaps is a greater difficulty) that man has
inhabited South America for an immensely long period, inasmuch as any
change of climate effected by the elevation of the land must have been
extremely gradual. At Valparaiso, within the last 220 years, the rise
has been somewhat less than 19 feet: at Lima a sea-beach has certainly
been upheaved from 80 to 90 feet, within the Indo-human period: but
such small elevations could have had little power in deflecting the
moisture-bringing atmospheric currents. Dr. Lund, however, found human
skeletons in the caves of Brazil, the appearance of which induced him
to believe that the Indian race has existed during a vast lapse of time
in South America.
When at Lima, I conversed on these subjects [3] with Mr. Gill, a civil
engineer, who had seen much of the interior country. He told me that a
conjecture of a change of climate had sometimes crossed his mind; but
that he thought that the greater portion of land, now incapable of
cultivation, but covered with Indian ruins, had been reduced to this
state by the water-conduits, which the Indians formerly constructed on
so wonderful a scale, having been injured by neglect and by
subterranean movements. I may here mention, that the Peruvians
actually carried their irrigating streams in tunnels through hills of
solid rock. Mr. Gill told me, he had been employed professionally to
examine one: he found the passage low, narrow, crooked, and not of
uniform breadth, but of very considerable length. Is it not most
wonderful that men should have attempted such operations, without the
use of iron or gunpowder? Mr. Gill also mentioned to me a most
interesting, and, as far as I am aware, quite unparalleled case, of a
subterranean disturbance having changed the drainage of a country.
Travelling from Casma to Huaraz (not very far distant from Lima), he
found a plain covered with ruins and marks of ancient cultivation but
now quite barren. Near it was the dry course of a considerable river,
whence the water for irrigation had formerly been conducted. There was
nothing in the appearance of the water-course to indicate that the
river had not flowed there a few years previously; in some parts, beds
of sand and gravel were spread out; in others, the solid rock had been
worn into a broad channel, which in one spot was about 40 yards in
breadth and 8 feet deep. It is self-evident that a person following up
the course of a stream, will always ascend at a greater or less
inclination: Mr. Gill, therefore, was much astonished, when walking up
the bed of this ancient river, to find himself suddenly going down
hill. He imagined that the downward slope had a fall of about 40 or 50
feet perpendicular. We here have unequivocal evidence that a ridge had
been uplifted right across the old bed of a stream. From the moment
the river-course was thus arched, the water must necessarily have been
thrown back, and a new channel formed. From that moment, also, the
neighbouring plain must have lost its fertilizing stream, and become a
desert.
June 27th.--We set out early in the morning, and by midday reached the
ravine of Paypote, where there is a tiny rill of water, with a little
vegetation, and even a few algarroba trees, a kind of mimosa. From
having firewood, a smelting-furnace had formerly been built here: we
found a solitary man in charge of it, whose sole employment was hunting
guanacos. At night it froze sharply; but having plenty of wood for our
fire, we kept ourselves warm.
28th.--We continued gradually ascending, and the valley now changed
into a ravine. During the day we saw several guanacos, and the track
of the closely-allied species, the Vicuna: this latter animal is
pre-eminently alpine in its habits; it seldom descends much below the
limit of perpetual snow, and therefore haunts even a more lofty and
sterile situation than the guanaco. The only other animal which we saw
in any number was a small fox: I suppose this animal preys on the mice
and other small rodents, which, as long as there is the least
vegetation, subsist in considerable numbers in very desert places. In
Patagonia, even on the borders of the salinas, where a drop of fresh
water can never be found, excepting dew, these little animals swarm.
Next to lizards, mice appear to be able to support existence on the
smallest and driest portions of the earth--even on islets in the midst
of great oceans.
The scene on all sides showed desolation, brightened and made palpable
by a clear, unclouded sky. For a time such scenery is sublime, but
this feeling cannot last, and then it becomes uninteresting. We
bivouacked at the foot of the "primera linea," or the first line of the
partition of waters. The streams, however, on the east side do not flow
to the Atlantic, but into an elevated district, in the middle of which
there is a large saline, or salt lake; thus forming a little Caspian
Sea at the height, perhaps, of ten thousand feet. Where we slept,
there were some considerable patches of snow, but they do not remain
throughout the year. The winds in these lofty regions obey very
regular laws. Every day a fresh breeze blows up the valley, and at
night, an hour or two after sunset, the air from the cold regions above
descends as through a funnel. This night it blew a gale of wind, and
the temperature must have been considerably below the freezing-point,
for water in a vessel soon became a block of ice. No clothes seemed to
pose any obstacle to the air; I suffered very much from the cold, so
that I could not sleep, and in the morning rose with my body quite dull
and benumbed.
In the Cordillera further southward, people lose their lives from
snow-storms; here, it sometimes happens from another cause. My guide,
when a boy of fourteen years old, was passing the Cordillera with a
party in the month of May; and while in the central parts, a furious
gale of wind arose, so that the men could hardly cling on their mules,
and stones were flying along the ground. The day was cloudless, and
not a speck of snow fell, but the temperature was low. It is probable
that the thermometer could not have stood very many degrees below the
freezing-point, but the effect on their bodies, ill protected by
clothing, must have been in proportion to the rapidity of the current
of cold air. The gale lasted for more than a day; the men began to
lose their strength, and the mules would not move onwards. My guide's
brother tried to return, but he perished, and his body was found two
years afterwards. Lying by the side of his mule near the road, with the
bridle still in his hand. Two other men in the party lost their
fingers and toes; and out of two hundred mules and thirty cows, only
fourteen mules escaped alive. Many years ago the whole of a large
party are supposed to have perished from a similar cause, but their
bodies to this day have never been discovered. The union of a
cloudless sky, low temperature, and a furious gale of wind, must be, I
should think, in all parts of the world an unusual occurrence.
June 29th--We gladly travelled down the valley to our former night's
lodging, and thence to near the Agua amarga. On July 1st we reached the
valley of Copiapo. The smell of the fresh clover was quite delightful,
after the scentless air of the dry, sterile Despoblado. Whilst staying
in the town I heard an account from several of the inhabitants, of a
hill in the neighbourhood which they called "El Bramador,"--the roarer
or bellower. I did not at the time pay sufficient attention to the
account; but, as far as I understood, the hill was covered by sand, and
the noise was produced only when people, by ascending it, put the sand
in motion. The same circumstances are described in detail on the
authority of Seetzen and Ehrenberg, [4] as the cause of the sounds
which have been heard by many travellers on Mount Sinai near the Red
Sea. One person with whom I conversed had himself heard the noise: he
described it as very surprising; and he distinctly stated that,
although he could not understand how it was caused, yet it was
necessary to set the sand rolling down the acclivity. A horse walking
over dry coarse sand, causes a peculiar chirping noise from the
friction of the particles; a circumstance which I several times noticed
on the coast of Brazil.
Three days afterwards I heard of the Beagle's arrival at the Port,
distant eighteen leagues from the town. There is very little land
cultivated down the valley; its wide expanse supports a wretched wiry
grass, which even the donkeys can hardly eat. This poorness of the
vegetation is owing to the quantity of saline matter with which the
soil is impregnated. The Port consists of an assemblage of miserable
little hovels, situated at the foot of a sterile plain. At present, as
the river contains water enough to reach the sea, the inhabitants enjoy
the advantage of having fresh water within a mile and a half. On the
beach there were large piles of merchandise, and the little place had
an air of activity. In the evening I gave my adios, with a hearty
good-will, to my companion Mariano Gonzales, with whom I had ridden so
many leagues in Chile. The next morning the Beagle sailed for Iquique.
July 12th.--We anchored in the port of Iquique, in lat. 20 degs. 12',
on the coast of Peru. The town contains about a thousand inhabitants,
and stands on a little plain of sand at the foot of a great wall of
rock, 2000 feet in height, here forming the coast. The whole is
utterly desert. A light shower of rain falls only once in very many
years; and the ravines consequently are filled with detritus, and the
mountain-sides covered by piles of fine white sand, even to a height of
a thousand feet. During this season of the year a heavy bank of
clouds, stretched over the ocean, seldom rises above the wall of rocks
on the coast. The aspect of the place was most gloomy; the little
port, with its few vessels, and small group of wretched houses, seemed
overwhelmed and out of all proportion with the rest of the scene.
The inhabitants live like persons on board a ship: every necessary
comes from a distance: water is brought in boats from Pisagua, about
forty miles northward, and is sold at the rate of nine reals (4s. 6d.)
an eighteen-gallon cask: I bought a wine-bottle full for threepence. In
like manner firewood, and of course every article of food, is imported.
Very few animals can be maintained in such a place: on the ensuing
morning I hired with difficulty, at the price of four pounds sterling,
two mules and a guide to take me to the nitrate of soda works. These
are at present the support of Iquique. This salt was first exported in
1830: in one year an amount in value of one hundred thousand pounds
sterling, was sent to France and England. It is principally used as a
manure and in the manufacture of nitric acid: owing to its deliquescent
property it will not serve for gunpowder. Formerly there were two
exceedingly rich silver-mines in this neighbourhood, but their produce
is now very small.
Our arrival in the offing caused some little apprehension. Peru was in
a state of anarchy; and each party having demanded a contribution, the
poor town of Iquique was in tribulation, thinking the evil hour was
come. The people had also their domestic troubles; a short time
before, three French carpenters had broken open, during the same night,
the two churches, and stolen all the plate: one of the robbers,
however, subsequently confessed, and the plate was recovered. The
convicts were sent to Arequipa, which though the capital of this
province, is two hundred leagues distant, the government there thought
it a pity to punish such useful workmen, who could make all sorts of
furniture; and accordingly liberated them. Things being in this state,
the churches were again broken open, but this time the plate was not
recovered. The inhabitants became dreadfully enraged, and declaring
that none but heretics would thus "eat God Almighty," proceeded to
torture some Englishmen, with the intention of afterwards shooting
them. At last the authorities interfered, and peace was established.
13th.--In the morning I started for the saltpetre-works, a distance of
fourteen leagues. Having ascended the steep coast-mountains by a
zigzag sandy track, we soon came in view of the mines of Guantajaya and
St. Rosa. These two small villages are placed at the very mouths of
the mines; and being perched up on hills, they had a still more
unnatural and desolate appearance than the town of Iquique. We did not
reach the saltpetre-works till after sunset, having ridden all day
across an undulating country, a complete and utter desert. The road
was strewed with the bones and dried skins of many beasts of burden
which had perished on it from fatigue. Excepting the Vultur aura,
which preys on the carcasses, I saw neither bird, quadruped, reptile,
nor insect. On the coast-mountains, at the height of about 2000 feet
where during this season the clouds generally hang, a very few cacti
were growing in the clefts of rock; and the loose sand was strewed over
with a lichen, which lies on the surface quite unattached. This plant
belongs to the genus Cladonia, and somewhat resembles the reindeer
lichen. In some parts it was in sufficient quantity to tinge the sand,
as seen from a distance, of a pale yellowish colour. Further inland,
during the whole ride of fourteen leagues, I saw only one other
vegetable production, and that was a most minute yellow lichen, growing
on the bones of the dead mules. This was the first true desert which I
had seen: the effect on me was not impressive; but I believe this was
owing to my having become gradually accustomed to such scenes, as I
rode northward from Valparaiso, through Coquimbo, to Copiapo. The
appearance of the country was remarkable, from being covered by a thick
crust of common salt, and of a stratified saliferous alluvium, which
seems to have been deposited as the land slowly rose above the level of
the sea. The salt is white, very hard, and compact: it occurs in water
worn nodules projecting from the agglutinated sand, and is associated
with much gypsum. The appearance of this superficial mass very closely
resembled that of a country after snow, before the last dirty patches
are thawed. The existence of this crust of a soluble substance over
the whole face of the country, shows how extraordinarily dry the
climate must have been for a long period.
At night I slept at the house of the owner of one of the saltpetre
mines. The country is here as unproductive as near the coast; but
water, having rather a bitter and brackish taste, can be procured by
digging wells. The well at this house was thirty-six yards deep: as
scarcely any rain falls, it is evident the water is not thus derived;
indeed if it were, it could not fail to be as salt as brine, for the
whole surrounding country is incrusted with various saline substances.
We must therefore conclude that it percolates under ground from the
Cordillera, though distant many leagues. In that direction there are a
few small villages, where the inhabitants, having more water, are
enabled to irrigate a little land, and raise hay, on which the mules
and asses, employed in carrying the saltpetre, are fed. The nitrate of
soda was now selling at the ship's side at fourteen shillings per
hundred pounds: the chief expense is its transport to the sea-coast.
The mine consists of a hard stratum, between two and three feet thick,
of the nitrate mingled with a little of the sulphate of soda and a good
deal of common salt. It lies close beneath the surface, and follows
for a length of one hundred and fifty miles the margin of a grand basin
or plain; this, from its outline, manifestly must once have been a
lake, or more probably an inland arm of the sea, as may be inferred
from the presence of iodic salts in the saline stratum. The surface of
the plain is 3300 feet above the Pacific.
19th.--We anchored in the Bay of Callao, the seaport of Lima, the
capital of Peru. We stayed here six weeks but from the troubled state
of public affairs, I saw very little of the country. During our whole
visit the climate was far from being so delightful, as it is generally
represented. A dull heavy bank of clouds constantly hung over the
land, so that during the first sixteen days I had only one view of the
Cordillera behind Lima. These mountains, seen in stages, one above the
other, through openings in the clouds, had a very grand appearance. It
is almost become a proverb, that rain never falls in the lower part of
Peru. Yet this can hardly be considered correct; for during almost
every day of our visit there was a thick drizzling mist, which was
sufficient to make the streets muddy and one's clothes damp: this the
people are pleased to call Peruvian dew. That much rain does not fall
is very certain, for the houses are covered only with flat roofs made
of hardened mud; and on the mole shiploads of wheat were piled up,
being thus left for weeks together without any shelter.
I cannot say I liked the very little I saw of Peru: in summer, however,
it is said that the climate is much pleasanter. In all seasons, both
inhabitants and foreigners suffer from severe attacks of ague. This
disease is common on the whole coast of Peru, but is unknown in the
interior. The attacks of illness which arise from miasma never fail to
appear most mysterious. So difficult is it to judge from the aspect of
a country, whether or not it is healthy, that if a person had been told
to choose within the tropics a situation appearing favourable for
health, very probably he would have named this coast. The plain round
the outskirts of Callao is sparingly covered with a coarse grass, and
in some parts there are a few stagnant, though very small, pools of
water. The miasma, in all probability, arises from these: for the town
of Arica was similarly circumstanced, and its healthiness was much
improved by the drainage of some little pools. Miasma is not always
produced by a luxuriant vegetation with an ardent climate; for many
parts of Brazil, even where there are marshes and a rank vegetation,
are much more healthy than this sterile coast of Peru. The densest
forests in a temperate climate, as in Chiloe, do not seem in the
slightest degree to affect the healthy condition of the atmosphere.
The island of St. Jago, at the Cape de Verds, offers another strongly
marked instance of a country, which any one would have expected to find
most healthy, being very much the contrary. I have described the bare
and open plains as supporting, during a few weeks after the rainy
season, a thin vegetation, which directly withers away and dries up: at
this period the air appears to become quite poisonous; both natives and
foreigners often being affected with violent fevers. On the other hand,
the Galapagos Archipelago, in the Pacific, with a similar soil, and
periodically subject to the same process of vegetation, is perfectly
healthy. Humboldt has observed, that, "under the torrid zone, the
smallest marshes are the most dangerous, being surrounded, as at Vera
Cruz and Carthagena, with an arid and sandy soil, which raises the
temperature of the ambient air." [5] On the coast of Peru, however, the
temperature is not hot to any excessive degree; and perhaps in
consequence, the intermittent fevers are not of the most malignant
order. In all unhealthy countries the greatest risk is run by sleeping
on shore. Is this owing to the state of the body during sleep, or to a
greater abundance of miasma at such times? It appears certain that
those who stay on board a vessel, though anchored at only a short
distance from the coast, generally suffer less than those actually on
shore. On the other hand, I have heard of one remarkable case where a
fever broke out among the crew of a man-of-war some hundred miles off
the coast of Africa, and at the same time one of those fearful periods
[6] of death commenced at Sierra Leone.
No state in South America, since the declaration of independence, has
suffered more from anarchy than Peru. At the time of our visit, there
were four chiefs in arms contending for supremacy in the government: if
one succeeded in becoming for a time very powerful, the others
coalesced against him; but no sooner were they victorious, than they
were again hostile to each other. The other day, at the Anniversary of
the Independence, high mass was performed, the President partaking of
the sacrament: during the _Te Deum laudamus_, instead of each regiment
displaying the Peruvian flag, a black one with death's head was
unfurled. Imagine a government under which such a scene could be
ordered, on such an occasion, to be typical of their determination of
fighting to death! This state of affairs happened at a time very
unfortunately for me, as I was precluded from taking any excursions
much beyond the limits of the town. The barren island of St. Lorenzo,
which forms the harbour, was nearly the only place where one could walk
securely. The upper part, which is upwards of 1000 feet in height,
during this season of the year (winter), comes within the lower limit
of the clouds; and in consequence, an abundant cryptogamic vegetation,
and a few flowers cover the summit. On the hills near Lima, at a
height but little greater, the ground is carpeted with moss, and beds
of beautiful yellow lilies, called Amancaes. This indicates a very
much greater degree of humidity, than at a corresponding height at
Iquique. Proceeding northward of Lima, the climate becomes damper, till
on the banks of the Guayaquil, nearly under the equator, we find the
most luxuriant forests. The change, however, from the sterile coast of
Peru to that fertile land is described as taking place rather abruptly
in the latitude of Cape Blanco, two degrees south of Guayaquil.
Callao is a filthy, ill-built, small seaport. The inhabitants, both
here and at Lima, present every imaginable shade of mixture, between
European, Negro, and Indian blood. They appear a depraved, drunken set
of people. The atmosphere is loaded with foul smells, and that
peculiar one, which may be perceived in almost every town within the
tropics, was here very strong. The fortress, which withstood Lord
Cochrane's long siege, has an imposing appearance. But the President,
during our stay, sold the brass guns, and proceeded to dismantle parts
of it. The reason assigned was, that he had not an officer to whom he
could trust so important a charge. He himself had good reason for
thinking so, as he had obtained the presidentship by rebelling while in
charge of this same fortress. After we left South America, he paid the
penalty in the usual manner, by being conquered, taken prisoner, and
shot.
Lima stands on a plain in a valley, formed during the gradual retreat
of the sea. It is seven miles from Callao, and is elevated 500 feet
above it; but from the slope being very gradual, the road appears
absolutely level; so that when at Lima it is difficult to believe one
has ascended even one hundred feet: Humboldt has remarked on this
singularly deceptive case. Steep barren hills rise like islands from
the plain, which is divided, by straight mud-walls, into large green
fields. In these scarcely a tree grows excepting a few willows, and an
occasional clump of bananas and of oranges. The city of Lima is now in
a wretched state of decay: the streets are nearly unpaved; and heaps of
filth are piled up in all directions, where the black gallinazos, tame
as poultry, pick up bits of carrion. The houses have generally an
upper story, built on account of the earthquakes, of plastered woodwork
but some of the old ones, which are now used by several families, are
immensely large, and would rival in suites of apartments the most
magnificent in any place. Lima, the City of the Kings, must formerly
have been a splendid town. The extraordinary number of churches gives
it, even at the present day, a peculiar and striking character,
especially when viewed from a short distance.
One day I went out with some merchants to hunt in the immediate
vicinity of the city. Our sport was very poor; but I had an
opportunity of seeing the ruins of one of the ancient Indian villages,
with its mound like a natural hill in the centre. The remains of
houses, enclosures, irrigating streams, and burial mounds, scattered
over this plain, cannot fail to give one a high idea of the condition
and number of the ancient population. When their earthenware, woollen
clothes, utensils of elegant forms cut out of the hardest rocks, tools
of copper, ornaments of precious stones, palaces, and hydraulic works,
are considered, it is impossible not to respect the considerable
advance made by them in the arts of civilization. The burial mounds,
called Huacas, are really stupendous; although in some places they
appear to be natural hills incased and modelled.
There is also another and very different class of ruins, which
possesses some interest, namely, those of old Callao, overwhelmed by
the great earthquake of 1746, and its accompanying wave. The
destruction must have been more complete even than at Talcahuano.
Quantities of shingle almost conceal the foundations of the walls, and
vast masses of brickwork appear to have been whirled about like pebbles
by the retiring waves. It has been stated that the land subsided
during this memorable shock: I could not discover any proof of this;
yet it seems far from improbable, for the form of the coast must
certainly have undergone some change since the foundation of the old
town; as no people in their senses would willingly have chosen for
their building place, the narrow spit of shingle on which the ruins now
stand. Since our voyage, M. Tschudi has come to the conclusion, by the
comparison of old and modern maps, that the coast both north and south
of Lima has certainly subsided.
On the island of San Lorenzo, there are very satisfactory proofs of
elevation within the recent period; this of course is not opposed to
the belief, of a small sinking of the ground having subsequently taken
place. The side of this island fronting the Bay of Callao, is worn
into three obscure terraces, the lower one of which is covered by a bed
a mile in length, almost wholly composed of shells of eighteen species,
now living in the adjoining sea. The height of this bed is eighty-five
feet. Many of the shells are deeply corroded, and have a much older
and more decayed appearance than those at the height of 500 or 600 feet
on the coast of Chile. These shells are associated with much common
salt, a little sulphate of lime (both probably left by the evaporation
of the spray, as the land slowly rose), together with sulphate of soda
and muriate of lime. They rest on fragments of the underlying
sandstone, and are covered by a few inches thick of detritus. The
shells, higher up on this terrace could be traced scaling off in
flakes, and falling into an impalpable powder; and on an upper terrace,
at the height of 170 feet, and likewise at some considerably higher
points, I found a layer of saline powder of exactly similar appearance,
and lying in the same relative position. I have no doubt that this
upper layer originally existed as a bed of shells, like that on the
eighty-five-feet ledge; but it does not now contain even a trace of
organic structure. The powder has been analyzed for me by Mr. T.
Reeks; it consists of sulphates and muriates both of lime and soda,
with very little carbonate of lime. It is known that common salt and
carbonate of lime left in a mass for some time together, partly
decompose each other; though this does not happen with small quantities
in solution. As the half-decomposed shells in the lower parts are
associated with much common salt, together with some of the saline
substances composing the upper saline layer, and as these shells are
corroded and decayed in a remarkable manner, I strongly suspect that
this double decomposition has here taken place. The resultant salts,
however, ought to be carbonate of soda and muriate of lime, the latter
is present, but not the carbonate of soda. Hence I am led to imagine
that by some unexplained means, the carbonate of soda becomes changed
into the sulphate. It is obvious that the saline layer could not have
been preserved in any country in which abundant rain occasionally fell:
on the other hand, this very circumstance, which at first sight appears
so highly favourable to the long preservation of exposed shells, has
probably been the indirect means, through the common salt not having
been washed away, of their decomposition and early decay.
I was much interested by finding on the terrace, at the height of
eighty-five feet, _embedded_ amidst the shells and much sea-drifted
rubbish, some bits of cotton thread, plaited rush, and the head of a
stalk of Indian corn: I compared these relics with similar ones taken
out of the Huacas, or old Peruvian tombs, and found them identical in
appearance. On the mainland in front of San Lorenzo, near Bellavista,
there is an extensive and level plain about a hundred feet high, of
which the lower part is formed of alternating layers of sand and impure
clay, together with some gravel, and the surface, to the depth of from
three to six feet, of a reddish loam, containing a few scattered
sea-shells and numerous small fragments of coarse red earthenware, more
abundant at certain spots than at others. At first I was inclined to
believe that this superficial bed, from its wide extent and smoothness,
must have been deposited beneath the sea; but I afterwards found in one
spot, that it lay on an artificial floor of round stones. It seems,
therefore, most probable that at a period when the land stood at a
lower level there was a plain very similar to that now surrounding
Callao, which being protected by a shingle beach, is raised but very
little above the level of the sea. On this plain, with its underlying
red-clay beds, I imagine that the Indians manufactured their earthen
vessels; and that, during some violent earthquake, the sea broke over
the beach, and converted the plain into a temporary lake, as happened
round Callao in 1713 and 1746. The water would then have deposited
mud, containing fragments of pottery from the kilns, more abundant at
some spots than at others, and shells from the sea. This bed, with
fossil earthenware, stands at about the same height with the shells on
the lower terrace of San Lorenzo, in which the cotton-thread and other
relics were embedded.
Hence we may safely conclude, that within the Indo-human period there
has been an elevation, as before alluded to, of more than eighty-five
feet; for some little elevation must have been lost by the coast having
subsided since the old maps were engraved. At Valparaiso, although in
the 220 years before our visit, the elevation cannot have exceeded
nineteen feet, yet subsequently to 1817, there has been a rise, partly
insensible and partly by a start during the shock of 1822, of ten or
eleven feet. The antiquity of the Indo-human race here, judging by the
eighty-five feet rise of the land since the relics were embedded, is
the more remarkable, as on the coast of Patagonia, when the land stood
about the same number of feet lower, the Macrauchenia was a living
beast; but as the Patagonian coast is some way distant from the
Cordillera, the rising there may have been slower than here. At Bahia
Blanca, the elevation has been only a few feet since the numerous
gigantic quadrupeds were there entombed; and, according to the
generally received opinion, when these extinct animals were living, man
did not exist. But the rising of that part of the coast of Patagonia,
is perhaps no way connected with the Cordillera, but rather with a line
of old volcanic rocks in Banda Oriental, so that it may have been
infinitely slower than on the shores of Peru. All these speculations,
however, must be vague; for who will pretend to say that there may not
have been several periods of subsidence, intercalated between the
movements of elevation; for we know that along the whole coast of
Patagonia, there have certainly been many and long pauses in the upward
action of the elevatory forces.
[1] Vol. iv. p. 11, and vol. ii. p. 217. For the remarks on Guayaquil,
see Silliman's Journ., vol. xxiv. p. 384. For those on Tacna by Mr.
Hamilton, see Trans. of British Association, 1840. For those on
Coseguina see Mr. Caldcleugh in Phil. Trans., 1835. In the former
edition I collected several references on the coincidences between
sudden falls in the barometer and earthquakes; and between earthquakes
and meteors.
[2] Observa. sobre el Clima de Lima, p. 67.--Azara's Travels, vol. i.
p. 381.--Ulloa's Voyage, vol. ii. p. 28.--Burchell's Travels, vol. ii.
p. 524.--Webster's Description of the Azores, p. 124.--Voyage a l'Isle
de France par un Officer du Roi, tom. i. p. 248.--Description of St.
Helena, p. 123.
[3] Temple, in his travels through Upper Peru, or Bolivia, in going
from Potosi to Oruro, says, "I saw many Indian villages or dwellings in
ruins, up even to the very tops of the mountains, attesting a former
population where now all is desolate." He makes similar remarks in
another place; but I cannot tell whether this desolation has been
caused by a want of population, or by an altered condition of the land.
[4] Edinburgh, Phil. Journ., Jan., 1830, p. 74; and April, 1830, p.
258--also Daubeny on Volcanoes, p. 438; and Bengal Journ., vol. vii. p.
324.
[5] Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, vol. iv. p. 199.
[6] A similar interesting case is recorded in the Madras Medical Quart.
Journ., 1839, p. 340. Dr. Ferguson, in his admirable Paper (see 9th
vol. of Edinburgh Royal Trans.), shows clearly that the poison is
generated in the drying process; and hence that dry hot countries are
often the most unhealthy.