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
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