for Santiago, where we arrived without incident-the memory of the landscape still pleasantly impressed.

CAUQUENES.

The baths which have obtained most celebrity for the.cures effected in obstinate rheumatic and chronic affections following venereal disorders, and that have resisted every other remedy, are those of Cauquenes, in the department of Rancagua. They are from seven to eight leagues east of the town of that name, near the south bank of the river Cachapual, and on a sort of table-land high above the bed of the stream. From this spot a prospect is commanded even more romantic and beautiful than from the hill back of Colina just described. In the rear of the table-land, the hill-sides are covered with trees; farther back, snow is visible eternally; and in front, the river winds to the southwest, across a plain unsurpassed in fertility, and presenting all the loveliness of landscape this glorious valley has to boast of. The surrounding formation is a secondary stratified porphyry, and the immediate site of the baths a very modern conglomerate (pudding-stone), which may be traced in horizontal beds to the bottom of the valley.

Ranges of buildings, with corridors and an internal patio, Chile fashion, have been erected for the accommodation of visitors, though, instead of being managed as a hotel, each of the thirty parties who may find shelter under its roofs is obliged to seek elsewhere for every other necessity. A bodegon at hand can furnish most of the indispensable articles of food; and as a penance for the crime of omission to provide themselves before leaving home, visitors are contented, perhaps, to pay the two or three prices demanded. During summer-the season when they are most frequented-owing partially to radiated heat from the rocky back-ground of the narrow valley in which they are situated, the air is excessively dry, and the temperature by day very hot. There are four principal supplies of water, with temperatures ranging, in the month of April, from 79°.2 to 120°.5, and with constituents very closely analogous to those of Apoquindo. Two of them, called the "Pelambre” and “Corrimiento," evolve gas which is apparently azote. For a more minute account, the reader is referred to Chapter XV.

PANIMAVILA.

There are no other mineral waters of much repute until arriving south of latitude 35°, where those of Panimavila are situated-the only instance of mineral springs at the level of the valley throughout its extent. Their height above the ocean is less than 900 feet; and the geological situation being somewhat different from that of all the localities where mineral waters are found in Chile, they deservedly attract the naturalist's attention. The modern alluvial stratum constituting the surface portion of the Great Plain, forms a deep bay within the Andes nearly a league in diameter. This is almost surrounded by hills of secondary stratified porphyry, identical with the formation about the baths previously mentioned; but the springs here, instead of issuing from the midst of the porphyry, rise from alluvial and somewhat muddy ground almost in the centre of the bay. On this account the waters have an earthy odor. They soon separate into little streams that moisten the adjoining plain, but neither become turbid nor leave deposits or saline efflorescences. The water is of the same temperature-88°.4-in four or five different springs, is perfectly clear, emits no gas, though possessing the odor of mud, and is extremely disagreeable to the taste. Its principal mineral ingredients are chloride of sodium, sulphate of soda, and sulphate of lime, which, with other organic substances in smaller proportions, amount to 0.37 grain in 1,000 by weight. Being in the vicinity of Linares, which has a population of 3,000 souls, and only twelve leagues from Talca, where there are 15,000 people, its healthy and temperate climate renders it a favorite resort; and for a long period a greater number of convalescents have frequented Panimavila than any other watering-place in the republic. It has better accommodations for invalids than any of them.

MONDACA.

Not far from Talca, in an E.N.E. direction, and north from the Descabezado peak, on the southern shore of the lake of that name, are the baths of Mondaca-or rather, there are the mineral waters so called; for the only baths are a few holes scooped in the earth from time to time, and around which bathers as temporarily arrange a sort of screen with stones and brushwood. In the midst of rugged mountains and utterly barren and desolate precipices, the lake slumbers tranquilly. At the farther end of its turbid waters, and in that direction only, are there symptoms of verdure. There the ground rises in terraces, over which the water of a little stream falls towards the lake in a pretty rapid, and partially diffuses itself over the surface, sustaining vegetable life.

The mineral waters issue from beneath granite rocks surrounded by gravel and coarse sand. They are 3,600 feet above the ocean; are clear; apparently emit no gas at their exit from the earth, yet have a slightly perceptible and disagreeable odor; and their temperatures range from 82°.5 to 111°.5, the heat being greater in newly made than in old excavations. Their principal organic matters are—

Prof. Domeyko found a small hut of dried branches amid these holes and piles of stone; but they afforded protection neither from the morning frosts nor the fierce noonday heat. Quite a number of invalids occupied it. Their pallets were spread on the bare earth; yet, almost scorched as they were by the heat, and subjected to constant privation, they retained full confidence in the miraculous powers attributed to the water. But I must quote a paragraph published by him in the "Anales de la Universidad," respecting the condition in which he found the mineral baths of most consequence nearest the third city of Chile: "Seeing these people so weak and emaciated, exposed to every vicissitude of climate, in a region where no living soul is to be found, I cannot but admire the courage and faith of man, forced to struggle with the rigors of nature in pursuit of health, and am surprised that, at so short a distance from the capital of a populous province, and within four or five leagues of the finest forest in Chile, there has not been constructed at least one house for sheltering them, at a place so famous for its thermal waters. Invalids who come here remain only eight or nine days to drink the water; those most attacked by rheumatic pains, affections of the stomach, or cutaneous diseases, bathing also. At the end of that time, almost all of them, I am assured, are better, and return happily home, if one of the temporales that so frequently occur do not overtake them on the road."

CATO.

These springs are three in number. They are situated fifteen or twenty leagues to the south of Panimavila, in a location somewhat analogous, though the water issues from a coarse, sandy quartzose formation of an ashy-grey color. Their temperature is constant at 96°.8. They are perfectly colorless, have no odor, are unpleasant to the palate, and emit a gas which is probably pure azote. In two of them the gas-bubbles rise constantly; in the other only at intervals, as though impeded, but in this case they are much the largest. Their chief mineral constituents are sulphate of soda, chloride of sodium, and silica. The volume of water is considerably less than that at Colina. Prof. Domeyko says: "Persons worthy of confidence have assured me that these springs were entirely dried up by the great earthquake of 1835, and that it is only a year (in 1849) since they reappeared at the same place." M. Crosnier* states that the springs issue from green amygdaloidal porphyry, the water exhaling a very decided

* Annales des Mines, Vol. XIX, 4th series, page 219.

odor of sulphuretted hydrogen. Another was shown him at a little distance from the rest, whose temperature was only 59°.8; and this also, he was assured, very sensibly emitted the same odor in the morning.

CHILLAN.

The sulphur baths of Chillan are at the bottom of a ravine in the Andes, E.S.E. from the city after which they are named; not far from the head-waters of the river Nuble, and nearly 500 miles from Santiago. Here, at an elevation of more than 6,000 feet, in the midst of capriciously broken hills and smoking solfataras of the desert cordillera, a citizen of Chillan -possessed of more enterprise than many of his countrymen on whose estates nature has mistakenly located fountains of alleviation--has erected a few rude houses, and provided accommodations for infirm guests, not far below the snow-line. Such has become the fame of these waters latterly, that visitors have come even from the remote capital-a journey of no trifling moment when we remember that at such times ox-carts are the usual vehicles of locomotion. The dwellings are immediately at the baths. Five or six of the latter are supplied from springs whose temperatures range from 118°.4 to 140°. When it rises from the earth the water is perfectly diaphanous, and emits a strong odor of sulphuretted hydrogen; both of which properties are lost after a short exposure to the air, and a slight deposit of white sulphur succeeds. A residuum of the same character is observed on the bather, and the air of the whole ravine is so impregnated with the detestable gas, that its odor is a nuisance to all new comers. In the apertures through which the waters flow, the vapor accumulates a sublimated sulphur either in small concretions or delicate and fragile spicule. In a thousand grains of the water there exists nearly half a grain of mineral matter, consisting of carbonate of lime, sulphate of soda, carbonate of soda, and sulphate of sodium. Free carbonic acid and azote are also perceptibly present.

Three hundred feet lower in the same quebrada there are other sulphur springs in the midst of veritable fumarolas-that is, apertures from whence sulphurous acid, vapor of water, and sublimated sulphur, are thrown out. In one of these, nearly eighteen inches in diameter, there arises a stream of water at a temperature above 147°, and from its midst gas is evolved in such quantities that a large vessel may be filled with it in a few minutes. Prof. Domeyko found it colorless, clouding with a solution of barytes and an extinguisher of combustion-in short, a mixture of carbonic acid and azote. At a very few steps farther there is another spring, from which water at the temperature of 190° gushes in large bubbles. It is turbid, and emits a strong odor of sulphuretted hydrogen. The surrounding rock is hot enough to burn cloth left in contact with it some minutes. At the same spot there is heard the ebullition of another spring like that of a huge subterranean caldron; and the fumes of sulphuric acid thrown out deposit on the earth and rocks of the vicinity a yellow or reddish grey coating, similar to that produced on the surface of those near the solfatara of Cerro Azul. The whole locality is replete with interest.

There are other hot springs at the very foot of the ravine, below and above. One may not only find holes filled with water, apparently in eternal ebullition, but a part of the rocks are so hot that a little stream which pours over them is instantly converted into vapor, with a hissing noise, and from under foot comes a roar as of gigantic steam-boilers.* At one place there is a mountain of sulphur, and a little farther away one of snow, from whose eastern slope, and almost from beneath the snow itself, a stream of heated sulphur-water flows. Within a mile or two the latter tumbles into another that springs from the centre of the valley. This last is cold and crystalline, and the two flow off to mingle their discordant stream with the Ñuble. Thus, a locality whose proximity to the snow-line would render it almost if not quite uninhabitable by invalids with Chilean constitutions, is kept constantly at a charming tempera

* Domeyko: Anales de la Universidad.

ture by nature's great subterranean furnace. The valley through which the streams flow from the baths takes its name "Aguas Calientes" (warm waters)-from one of their qualities, and is one of the most beautiful in all Chile. Most sincere were the regrets that civil war should be raging at the only leisure period when the South could have been visited, and that the "Valle de las Aguas Calientes" did not become personally familiar.

The locality was subsequently visited by a most valued friend, from whose graphic description the following account is added: "We remained three days at Chillan, and then started for the baths, situated twenty-five leagues from the city, on the elevations of a cordillera called the 'Nevada de Chillan.' Our journey occupied two days, amid forests towering to the clouds, with occasional vistas, inspiring adoration of the Creator who had blessed our earth with so much loveliness. Part we accomplished in a birlocho, but the greater portion on horseback, there being some dangerous places for wheel-vehicles. Some persons, however, ascend to the very baths in their carriages.

"The baths are found at the foot of the snow-range, and at the very tenements we have enormous masses of the frozen substance. In every direction through the quebrada the vapors form little clouds; and sulphur, iron, and lime float liquidly around one. At the vapor baths there are springs where the waters boil as in a caldron. Quite close to them there is a cold ferruginous stream; and within less than a yard there is another orifice of warm water, besides many of various degrees of temperature. All these are led to the bathing-rooms through tubes of wood, and every one can temper the water to his liking. The houses are of boards and quite good, and at this time (January, 1855) are filled by visitors.

"Twelve leagues to the south, and at the same elevation as we now are, is the volcano of Antuco, which they inform me is in activity. The proprietor of the baths, who has visited the volcano, tells me that the mouth of the old crater closed in 1834, and that it is now burning through two others. Sometimes it burns with such violence that the cinders are thrown to a horizontal distance of four leagues."

DOÑA ANA.

The only mineral springs yet ascertained and resorted to in the northern portion of the republic are those of Doña Ana and Soco, both in the province of Coquimbo. Owing, however, to the difficulty of access and the sparseness of the population, neither of them has been much frequented. The former are in the midst of granite and stratified rocks, forming a part of the cordilleras, forty leagues east of Serena, and ten thousand feet above the sea. There are four or five principal and many lesser springs, with temperatures ranging from 78°.8 to 140°. They are all within a space of twelve or fifteen yards, and some of them, that differ quite 50° from each other, issue from apertures not more than three or four feet apart. They throw out carbonic acid, but no sulphuretted hydrogen; have a salt and bitter taste; are purgative; are considered to possess great medicinal virtues; and deposit a considerable quantity of deliquescent salts, that perhaps contribute to produce unusual dryness in the surrounding atmosphere. The principal mineral ingredients are chloride of sodium, chloride of calcium, and sulphate of soda. A torrent of turbid white water descends the ravine beside them, and unites with the river Turbio, ten or twelve miles farther down. When last visited, there was only one wretched rancho for the accommodation of invalids.

SOCO.

These baths are only four or five leagues from the ocean, and are the only mineral waters yet discovered in the granite formation of all Chile. However, very little more is known of them than that they are near Barrasá, on the river Limari, and are sometimes stopped at for a moment by travellers between Coquimbo and Valparaiso.

CHAPTER XII.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, IN 1851.

PRELIMINARY MEASURES OF GOVERNMENT.—THE CANDIDATES.-DISORDER IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.-QUALIFICATION OF VOTERS.—JUDGES OF THE ELECTION.-POLITICAL MEETINGS PROHIBITED.-ORGANIZATIONS FOR THE PURCHASE OF VOTES.-THE BALLOTTING.-PRICES PAID FOR VOTES.-INCIDENTS AT THE POLL.-THE OPPOSITION PARTY DISSATISFIED.-REGARDED THE MOST IMPARTIAL ELECTION WITHIN TWENTY YEARS.-FRAUDULENT QUALIFICATIONS.—NUMBER OF VOTES POLLED THROUGHOUT THE REPUBLIC.—THE RESULT.-FAILURE OF THE OPPOSITION DEPUTIES TO DEFEAT THE LAW.-CEREMONIES ON DECLARING AND INAUGURATING THE NEW PRESIDENT.

Prior to the day appointed for the meeting of Congress (June 1), rapid work was made with all those members against whom the least charge could be brought; and, under the powers exercised during the existence of martial law, four or five deputies, four prominent civilians belonging to the opposition party, and a part of the editors and contributors to the liberal papers, both at Valparaiso and Santiago, were banished. Meantime, as soon as the government could take decided measures, an order was sent to the south for all the regular troops to be put in motion towards Santiago. Gen. Cruz, the liberal candidate for the presidency, was, at the time, Intendente of Concepcion, and had quite a large portion of the standing army under his control, ready to back a popularity increasing rather too rapidly for the pleasure of the administration. Moreover, as it was possible he would not be willing to part with those whose muskets might be needed to sustain his own pretensions, in order to cripple him to the utmost in such case, it was currently believed that independent orders had been sent to each subordinate, directing him individually to repair to Santiago. If true-and there is little reason to doubt it—this was a breach of military courtesy and etiquette, to which no commander would quietly submit. Certain it is, within a few days many of the officers appeared at the capital; and the General, landing from a steamer at Valparaiso, also presented himself at head-quarters. But he was too old a soldier not to keep counsel, and the circles of gossips were for the time at fault.

On the 20th of May, just a month after the revolt, some sixty or seventy of the matrons of Santiago waited on Gen. Cruz in a body. They were arrayed in mourning. Their avowed object was to welcome a chief who they hoped would deliver their country from the despotism they considered prevailing, and free them from terrors consequent on the expatriation of fathers and husbands during the terms of martial law, to which they had, of late, been so subject. These visitors were among the very first families of Chile. Besides this evidence of respect, whenever he appeared in public he was greeted by the mass with cheers; whilst the name of Señor Montt, the ministerial candidate, if heard at all, was only "damned with faint praise.'

Congress met on the 1st of June, and as the substitutes of the banished members were generally in favor of the existing government, the ministerial candidates were elected as presiding officers at the first ballot. On the same day a paper was presented from one of the ablest of the expatriated deputies, asking that the decision by the conservative commission, which deprived him of his seat, might be revised by the Chamber to which he belonged. A discussion at once arose between the president and deputy presenting it, in which more than ordinary feeling was shown on both sides. The former affected to treat it as a common petition, to be referred-under the rule-to a standing committee, whose composition would, of course, conform to the wishes of government; and the latter claimed its consideration as a privileged question. In a little time affairs assumed a tone of such rancor that the audience, almost to a man espousing the side of the opposition, actually hissed and hooted down the ministers or