those nearer the surface. The man who had charge of the baths assured
me that in summer the water is hotter and more plentiful than in
winter. The former circumstance I should have expected, from the less
mixture, during the dry season, of cold water; but the latter statement
appears very strange and contradictory. The 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 13th.--We left the baths of Cauquenes, and, rejoining the
main road, slept at the Rio Clara. From this place we rode to the town
of San 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
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