I was as well pleased with this circ.u.mstance as with any my landlord had done, because I had not so entire a confidence in the native Chilians as he had; but I saw plainly, some time after, that I was wrong, for nothing could be more honest, quiet, and free from design, than those people, except the poor honest people where we dressed up the king and queen, as already mentioned.
We were late in the morning before we got out, having all this equipage to furnish, and, travelling very gently, it was about two hours before sunset when we came to the entrance of the mountains, where, to my surprise, I found we were to go in upon a level, without any ascent, at least that was considerable. We had, indeed, gone up upon a sharp ascent, for near two miles, before we came to the place.
The entrance was agreeable enough, the pa.s.sage being near half a mile broad. On the left hand was a small river, whose channel was deep, but the water shallow, there having been but little rain for some time; the water ran very rapid, and, as my Spaniard told me, was sometimes exceeding fierce. The entrance lay inclining a little south, and was so straight, that we could see near a mile before us; but the prodigious height of the hills on both sides, and before us, appearing one over another, gave such a prospect of horror, that I confess it was frightful at first to look on the stupendous alt.i.tude of the rocks; everything above us looking one higher than another was amazing; and to see how in some places they hung over the river, and over the pa.s.sage, it created a dread of being overwhelmed with them.
The rocks and precipices of the Andes, on our right hand, had here and there vast cliffs and entrances, which looked as if they had been different thoroughfares; but, when we came to look full into them, we could see no pa.s.sage at the farther end, and that they went off in slopes, and with gulleys made by the water, which, in hasty rains, came pouring down from the hills, and which, at a distance, made such noises as it is impossible to conceive, unless by having seen and heard the like before; for the water, falling from a height twenty times as high as our own Monument, and, perhaps, much higher, and meeting in the pa.s.sage with many dashes and interruptions, it is impossible to describe how the sound, crossing and interfering, mingled itself, and the several noises sunk one into another, increasing the whole, as the many waters joining increased the main stream.
We entered this pa.s.sage about two miles the first night; after the first length, which as I said, held about three quarters of a mile, we turned away to the south, short on the right hand; the river leaving us, seemed to come through a very narrow but deep hollow of the mountains, where there was little more breadth at the bottom than the channel took up, though the rocks inclined backward as they ascended, as placed in several stages, though all horrid and irregular; and we could see nothing but blackness and terror all the way. I was glad our pa.s.sage did not turn on that side, but wondered that we should leave the river, and the more when I found, that in the way we went, having first mounted gently a green pleasant slope, it declined again, and we saw a new rivulet begin in the middle, and the water running south-east or thereabouts. This discovery made me ask if the water went away into the new world beyond the hills? My patron smiled, and said, No seignior, not yet; we shall meet with the other river again very quickly; and so we found it again the next morning.
When we came a little farther, we found the pa.s.sage open, and we came to a very pleasant plain, which declined a little gradually, widening to the left, or east side; on the right side of this we saw another vast opening like the first, which went in about half a mile, and then closed up as the first had done, sloping up to the top of the hills, a most astonishing inconceivable height.
My patron stopping here, and getting down, or alighting from his mule, gave him to his man, and asking me to alight, told me this was the first night"s entertainment I was to meet with in the Andes, and hoped I was prepared for it. I told him, that I might very well consent to accept of such entertainment, in a journey of my own contriving, as he was content to take up with, in compliment to me.
I looked round to see if there were any huts or cots of the mountaineers thereabouts, but I perceived none; only I observed something like a house, and it was really a house of some of the said mountaineers, upon the top of a precipice as high from where we stood, as the summit of the cupola of St. Paul"s, and I saw some living creatures, whether men or women I could not tell, looking from thence down upon us. However, I understood afterwards that they had ways to come at their dwelling, which were very easy and agreeable, and had lanes and plains where they fed their cattle, and had everything growing that they desired.
My patron, making a kind of an invitation to me to walk, took me up that dark chasm, or opening, on the right hand, which I have just mentioned.
Here, sir, said he, if you will venture to walk a few steps, it is likely we may show you some of the product of this country; but, recollecting that night was approaching, he added, I see it is too dark; perhaps it will be better to defer it till the morning. Accordingly, we walked back towards the place where we had left our mules and servants, and, when we came thither, there was a complete camp fixed, three very handsome tents raised, and a bar set up at a distance, where the mules were tied one to another to graze, and the servants and the baggage lay together, with an open tent over them.
My patron led me into the first tent, and told me he was obliged to let me know that I must make a shift with that lodging, the place not affording any better.
Here we had quilts laid very commodiously for me and my three comrades, and we lodged very comfortably; but, before we went to rest, we had the third tent to go to, in which there was a very handsome table, covered with a cold treat of roasted mutton and beef, very well dressed, some potted or baked venison, with pickles, conserves, and fine sweetmeats of various sorts.
Here we ate very freely, but he bade us depend upon it that we should not fare so well the next night, and so it would be worse every night, till we came to lie entirely at a mountaineer"s; but he was better to us than he pretended.
In the morning, we had our chocolate as regularly as we used to have it in his own house, and we were soon ready to pursue our journey. We went winding now from the south-east to the left, till our course looked east by north, when we came again to have the river in view. But I should have observed here, that my two midshipmen, and two of my patron"s servants, had, by his direction, been very early in the morning climbing up the rocks in the opening on the right hand, and had come back again about a quarter of an hour after we set out; when, missing my two men, I inquired for them, and my patron said they were coming; for, it seems he saw them at a distance, and so we halted for them.
When they were come almost up to us, he called to his men in Spanish, to ask if they had had Una bon vejo? They answered, Poco, poco; and when they came quite up, one of my midshipmen showed me three or four small bits of clean perfect gold, which they had picked up in the hill or gullet where the water trickled down from the rocks; and the Spaniard told them that, had they had time, they should have found much more, the water being quite down, and n.o.body having been there since the last hard rain. One of the Spaniards had three small bits in his hand also. I said nothing for the present, but charged my midshipmen to mark the place, and so we went on.
We followed up the stream of this water for three days more, encamping every night as before, in which time we pa.s.sed by several such openings into the rocks on either side. On the fourth day we had the prospect of a very pleasant valley and river below us, on the north side, keeping its course almost in the middle; the valley reaching near four miles in length, and in some places near two miles broad.
This sight was perfectly surprising, because here we found the vale fruitful, level, and inhabited, there being several small villages or cl.u.s.ters of houses, such as the Chilians live in, which are low houses, covered with a kind of sedge, and sheltered with little rows of thick grown trees, but of what kind we knew not.
We saw no way through the valley, nor which way we were to go out, but perceived it everywhere bounded with prodigious mountains, look to which side of it we would. We kept still on the right, which was now the south-east side of the river, and as we followed it up the stream, it was still less than at first, and lessened every step we went, because of the number of rills we left behind us; and here we encamped the fifth time, and all this time the Spanish gentleman victualled us; then we turned again to the right, where we had a new and beautiful prospect of another valley, as broad as the other, but not above a mile in length.
After we had pa.s.sed through this valley, my patron rode up to a poor cottage of a Chilian Indian without any ceremony, and calling us all about him, told us that there we would go to dinner. We saw a smoke indeed _in_ the house, rather than coming _out_ of it; and the little that did, smothered through a hole in the roof instead of a chimney.
However, to this house, as an inn, my patron had sent away his major-domo and another servant; and there they were, as busy as two professed cooks, boiling and stewing goats" flesh and fowls, making up soups, broths, and other messes, which it seems they were used to provide, and which, however homely the cottage was, we found very savoury and good.
Immediately a loose tent was pitched, and we had our table set up, and dinner served in; and afterwards, having reposed ourselves (as the custom there is), we were ready to travel again.
I had leisure all this while to observe and wonder at the admirable structure of this part of the country, which may serve, in my opinion, for the eighth wonder of the world; that is to say, supposing there were but seven before. We had in the middle of the day, indeed, a very hot sun, and the reflection from the mountains made it still hotter; but the height of the rocks on every side began to cast long shadows before three o"clock, except where the openings looked towards the west; and as soon as those shadows reached us, the cool breezes of the air came naturally on, and made our way exceeding pleasant and refreshing.
The place we were in was green and flourishing, and the soil well cultivated by the poor industrious Chilians, who lived here in perfect solitude, and pleased with their liberty from the tyranny of the Spaniards, who very seldom visited them, and never molested them, being pretty much out of their way, except when they came for hunting and diversion, and then they used the Chilians always civilly, because they were obliged to them for their a.s.sistance in their diversions, the Chilians of those valleys being very active, strong, and nimble fellows.
By this means most of them were furnished with fire-arms, powder, and shot, and were very good marksmen; but, as to violence against any one, they entertained no thought of that kind, as I could perceive, but were content with their way of living, which was easy and free.
The tops of the mountains here, the valleys being so large, were much plainer to be seen than where the pa.s.sages were narrow, for there the height was so great that we could see but little. Here, at several distances (the rocks towering one over another), we might see smoke come out of some, snow lying upon others, trees and bushes growing all around; and goats, wild a.s.ses, and other creatures, which we could hardly distinguish, running about in various parts of the country.
When we had pa.s.sed through this second valley, I perceived we came to a narrower pa.s.sage, and something like the first; the entrance into it indeed was smooth, and above a quarter of a mile broad, and it went winding away to the north, and then again turned round to the north-east, afterwards almost due-east, and then to the south-east, and so to south-south-east; and this frightful narrow strait, with the hanging rocks almost closing together on the top, whose height we could neither see nor guess at, continued about three days" journey more, most of the way ascending gently before us. As to the river, it was by this time quite lost; but we might see, that on any occasion of rain, or of the melting of the snow on the mountains, there was a hollow in the middle of the valley through which the water made its way, and on either hand, the sides of the hills were full of the like gulleys, made by the violence of the rain, where, not the earth only, but the rocks themselves, even the very stone, seemed to be worn and penetrated by the continual fall of the water.
Here my patron showed me, that in the hollow which I mentioned in the middle of this way, and at the bottom of those gulleys, or places worn as above in the rocks, there were often found pieces of gold, and sometimes, after a rain, very great quant.i.ties; and that there were few of the little Chilian cottages which I had seen where they had not sometimes a pound or two of gold dust and lumps of gold by them, and he was mistaken, if I was willing to stay and make the experiment, if we did not find some even then, in a very little search.
The Chilian mountaineer at whose house we stopped to dine had gone with us, and he hearing my patron say thus, ran presently to the hollow channel in the middle, where there was a kind of fail or break in it, which the water, by falling perhaps two or three feet, had made a hollow deeper than the rest, and which, though there was no water then running, yet had water in it, perhaps the quant.i.ty of a barrel or two. Here, with the help of two of the servants and a kind of scoop, he presently threw out the water, with the sand, and whatever was at bottom among it, into the ordinary watercourse; the water falling thus hard, every scoopful upon the sand or earth that came out of the scoop before it, washed a great deal of it away; and among that which remained, we might plainly see little lumps of gold shining as big as grains of sand, and sometimes one or two a little bigger.
This was demonstration enough to us. I took up some small grains of it, about the quant.i.ty of half a quarter of an ounce, and left my midshipmen to take up more, and they stayed indeed so long, that they could scarce see their way to overtake us, and brought away about two ounces in all, the Chilian and the servants freely giving them all they found.
When we had travelled about nine miles more in this winding frightful narrow way, it began to grow towards night, and my patron talked of taking up our quarters as we had before; but his gentleman put him in a mind of a Chilian, one of their old servants, who lived in a turning among the mountains, about half a mile out of our way, and where we might be accommodated with a house, or place at least, for our cookery.
Very true, says our patron, we will go thither; and there, seignior, says he, turning to me, you shall see an emblem of complete felicity, even in the middle of this seat of horror; and you shall see a prince greater, and more truly so, than King Philip, who is the greatest man in the world.
Accordingly we went softly on, his gentleman having advanced before, and in about half a mile we found a turning or opening on our left, where we beheld a deep large valley, almost circular, and of about a mile diameter, and abundance of houses or cottages interspersed all over it, so that the whole valley looked like an inhabited village, and the ground like a planted garden.
We who, as I said, had been for some miles ascending, were so high above the valley, that it looked as the lowlands in England do below Box Hill in Surrey; and I was going to ask how we should get down? but, as we were come into a wider s.p.a.ce than before, so we had more daylight; for though the hollow way had rendered it near dusk before, now it was almost clear day again.
Here we parted with the first Chilian that I mentioned, and I ordered one of my midshipmen to give him a hat, and a piece of black baize, enough to make him a cloak, which so obliged the man that he knew not what way to testify his joy; but I knew what I was doing in this, and I ordered my midshipman to do it that he might make his acquaintance with him against another time, and it was not a gift ill bestowed, as will appear in its place.
We were now obliged to quit our mules, who all took up their quarters at the top of the hill, while we, by footings made in the rocks, descended, as we might say, down a pair of stairs of half a mile long, but with many plain places between, like foot-paces, for the ease of going and coming.
Thus, winding and turning to avoid the declivity of the hill, we came very safe to the bottom, where my patron"s gentleman brought our new landlord, that was to be, who came to pay his compliments to us.
He was dressed in a jerkin made of otter-skin, like a doublet, a pair of long Spanish breeches, of leather dressed after the Spanish fashion, green, and very soft, and which looked very well, but what the skin was, I could not guess; he had over it a mantle of a kind of cotton, dyed in two or three grave brown colours, and thrown about him like a Scotsman"s plaid; he had shoes of a particular make, tied on like sandals, flat-heeled, no stockings, his breeches hanging down below the calf of his leg, and his shoes lacing up above his ancles. He had on a cap of the skin of some small beast like a rac.o.o.n, with a bit of the tail hanging out from the crown of his head backward, a long pole in his hand, and a servant, as oddly dressed as himself, carried his gun; he had neither spado nor dagger.
When our patron came up, the Chilian stepped forward and made him three very low bows, and then they talked together, not in Spanish, but in a kind of mountain jargon, some Spanish, and some Chilian, of which I scarce understood one word. After a few words, I understood he said something of a stranger come to see, and then, I supposed, added, the pa.s.sages of the mountains; then the Chilian came towards me, made me three bows, and bade me welcome in Spanish. As soon as he had said that, he turns to his barbarian, I mean his servant, for he was as ugly a looked fellow as ever I saw, and taking his gun from him presented it to me. My patron bade me take it, for he saw me at a loss what to do, telling me that it was the greatest compliment that a Chilian could pay to me; he would be very ill pleased and out of humour if it was not accepted, and would think we did not want to be friendly with him.
As we had not given this Chilian any notice of our coming, more than a quarter of an hour, we could not expect great matters of entertainment, and, as we carried our provision with us, we did not stand in much need of it; but we had no reason to complain.
This man"s habitation was the same as the rest, low, and covered with a sedge, or a kind of reed which we found grew very plentifully in the valley where he lived; he had several pieces of ground round his dwelling, enclosed with walls made very artificially with small stones and no mortar; these enclosed grounds were planted with several kinds of garden-stuff for his household, such as plantains, Spanish cabbages, green cocoa, and other things of the growth of their own country, and two of them with European wheat.
He had five or six apartments in his house, every one of them had a door into the open air, and into one another, and two of them were very large and decent, had long tables on one side, made after their own way, and benches to sit to them, like our country people"s long tables in England, and mattresses like couches all along the other side, with skins of several sorts of wild creatures laid on them to repose on in the heat of the day, as is the usage among the Spaniards.
Our people set up their tents and beds abroad as before; but my patron told me the Chilian would take it very ill if he and I did not take up our lodging in his house, and we had two rooms provided, very magnificent in their way.
The mattress we lay on had a large canopy over it, spread like the crown of a tent, and covered with a large piece of cotton, white as milk, and which came round every way like a curtain, so that if it had been in the open field it would have been a complete covering. The bed, such as it was, might be nearly as hard as a quilt, and the covering was of the same cotton as the curtain-work, which, it seems, is the manufacture of the Chilian women, and is made very dexterously; it looked wild, but agreeably enough, and proper to the place, so I slept very comfortably in it.
But, I must confess, I was surprised at the aspect of things in the night here. It was, as I told you above, near night when we came to this man"s cottage (palace I should have called it), and, while we were taking our repast, which was very good, it grew quite night.
We had wax candles brought in to accommodate us with light, which, it seems, my patron"s man had provided; and the place had so little communication with the air by windows, that we saw nothing of what was without doors.
After supper my patron turned to me and said, Come, seignior, prepare yourself to take a walk. What! in the dark, said I, in such a country as this? No, no, says he, it is never dark here, you are now come to the country of everlasting day; what think you? is not this Elysium? I do not understand you, answered I. But you will presently, says he, when I shall show you that it is now lighter abroad than when we came in. Soon after this some of the servants opened the door that went into the next room, and the door of that room, which opened in the air, stood open, from whence a light of fire shone into the outer room, and so farther into ours. What are they burning there? said I to my patron. You will see presently, says he, adding, I hope you will not be surprised, and then he led me to the outer door.
But who can express the thoughts of a man"s heart, coming on a sudden into a place where the whole world seemed to be on fire! The valley was, on one side, so exceeding bright the eye could scarce bear to look at it; the sides of the mountains were shining like the fire itself; the flame from the top of the mountain on the other side casting its light directly upon them. From thence the reflection into other parts looked red, and more terrible; for the first was white and clear, like the light of the sun; but the other, being, as it were, a reflection of light mixed with some darker cavities, represented the fire of a furnace; and, in short, it might well be said here was no darkness; but certainly, at the first view, it gives a traveller no other idea than that of being at the very entrance into eternal horror.
All this while there was no fire, that is to say, no real flame to be seen, only, that where the flame was it shone clearly into the valley; but the vulcano, or vulcanoes, from whence the fire issued out (for it seems there was no less than three of them, though at the distance of some miles from one another), were on the south and east sides of the valley, which was so much on that side where we were, that we could see nothing but the light; neither on the other side could they see any more, it seems, than just the top of the flame, not knowing anything of the places from whence it issued out, which no mortal creature, no, not of the Chilians themselves, were ever hardy enough to go near. Nor would it be possible, if any should attempt it, the tops of the hills, for many leagues about them, being covered with new mountains of ashes and stones, which are daily cast out of the mouths of those volcanoes, by which they grew every day higher than they were before, and which would overwhelm, not only men, but whole armies of men, if they should venture to come near them.
When first we came into the long narrow way I mentioned last, I observed, as I thought, the wind blew very hard aloft among the hills, and that it made a noise like thunder, which I thought nothing of, but as a thing usual. But now, when I came to this terrible sight, and that I heard the same thunder, and yet found the air calm and quiet, I soon understood that it was a continued thunder, occasioned by the roaring of the fire in the bowels of the mountains.
It must be some time, as may be supposed, before a traveller, unacquainted with such things, could make them familiar to him; and though the horror and surprise might abate, after proper reflections on the nature and reason of them, yet I had a kind of astonishment upon me for a great while; every different place to which I turned my eye presented me with a new scene of horror. I was for some time frighted at the fire being, as it were, over my head, for I could see nothing of it; but that the air looked as if it were all on fire; and I could not persuade myself but it would cast down the rocks and mountains on my head; but I was laughed out of that notion by the company.
After a while, I asked them if these volcanoes did not cast out a kind of liquid fire, as I had seen an account of on the eruptions at Mount-aetna, which cast out, as we are told, a prodigious stream of fire, and run several leagues into the sea?
Upon my putting this question to my patron, he asked the Chilian how long ago it was since such a stream, calling it by a name of their own, ran fire? He answered, it ran now, and if we were disposed to walk but three furlongs we should see it.