he height of the land and the great
transparency of the air.

The setting of the sun was glorious, the valleys being black, whilst the
snowy peaks of the Andes yet retained a ruby tint. When it was dark we
made a fire beneath a little arbor of bamboos, fried our _charqui_ (or
dried slips of beef), took our mate, and were quite comfortable. There
is an inexpressible charm in this living in the open air. The evening
was calm and still; the shrill noise of the mountain bizcacha and the
faint cry of a goatsucker were occasionally to be heard. Besides these,
few birds, or even insects, frequent these dry, parched mountains.

_17th._--In the morning we climbed up the rough mass of greenstone which
crowns the summit. This rock, as frequently happens, was much shattered
and broken into huge angular fragments. I observed, however, one
remarkable circumstance,--namely, that many of the surfaces presented
every degree of freshness, some appearing as if broken the day before,
while on others lichens had either just become, or had long grown,
attached. I so fully believed that this was owing to the frequent
earthquakes, that I felt inclined to hurry from below each loose pile.
As one might very easily be deceived in a fact of this kind, I doubted
its accuracy, until ascending Mount Wellington, in Van Diemen's Land,
where earthquakes do not occur, and there I saw the summit of the
mountain similarly composed and similarly shattered, but all the blocks
appeared as if they had been hurled into their present position
thousands of years ago.

We spent the day on the summit, and I never enjoyed one more thoroughly.
Chile, bounded by the Andes and the Pacific, was seen as in a map. The
pleasure from the scenery, in itself beautiful, was heightened by the
many reflections which arose from the mere view of the Campana range,
with its lesser parallel ones, and of the broad valley of Quillota
directly intersecting them. Who can avoid wondering at the force which
has upheaved these mountains, and even more so at the countless ages
which it must have required to have broken through, removed, and
levelled whole masses of them? It is well in this case to call to mind
the vast shingle and sedimentary beds of Patagonia, which, if heaped on
the Cordillera, would increase its height by so many thousand feet. When
in that country I wondered how any mountain-chain could supply such
masses and not have been utterly obliterated. We must not now reverse