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
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