ry bad, but both the geology and scenery amply repaid
the trouble. We reached, by the evening, a spring called the Agua del
Guanaco, which is situated at a great height. This must be an old name,
for it is very many years since a guanaco drank its waters. During the
ascent I noticed that nothing but bushes grew on the northern slope,
while on the southern slope there was a bamboo about fifteen feet high.
In a few places there were palms, and I was surprised to see one at an
elevation of at least four thousand five hundred feet. These palms are,
for their family, ugly trees. Their stem is very large and of a curious
form, being thicker in the middle than at the base or top. They are
excessively numerous in some parts of Chile, and valuable on account of
a sort of treacle made from the sap.

On one estate near Petorca they tried to count them, but failed, after
having numbered several hundred thousand. Every year in the early
spring, in August, very many are cut down, and when the trunk is lying
on the ground the crown of leaves is lopped off. The sap then
immediately begins to flow from the upper end, and continues so doing
for some months; it is, however, necessary that a thin slice should be
shaved off from that end every morning, so as to expose a fresh surface.
A good tree will give ninety gallons, and all this must have been
contained in the vessels of the apparently dry trunk. It is said that
the sap flows much more quickly on those days when the sun is powerful,
and likewise that it is absolutely necessary to take care, in cutting
down the tree, that it should fall with its head upward on the slope of
the hill; for if it falls down the slope scarcely any sap will flow,
although in that case one would have thought that the action would have
been aided, instead of checked, by the force of gravity. The sap is
concentrated by boiling, and is then called treacle, which it very much
resembles in taste.

We unsaddled our horses near the spring, and prepared to pass the night.
The evening was fine, and the atmosphere so clear that the masts of
vessels at anchor in the bay of Valparaiso, although no less than
twenty-six geographical miles distant, could be distinguished clearly as
little black streaks. A ship doubling the point under sail appeared as a
bright white speck. Anson expresses much surprise, in his voyage, at the
distance at which his vessels were detected from the coast; but he did
not sufficiently allow for t