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
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