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Immediately adjoining are the splendid buildings in which the
sittings of congress are held.
The morning of our return was cold and frosty, and the plain
of Santiago was enveloped in a dense mist, from which we did
not emerge until the train had entered the mountain valleys,
through which it wound towards the heights of Montenegro. Here
we rose above the gloomy mists, and were gladdened by the
bright and warm rays of a sun whose beams were as yet screened
from the lowlands. Wild ducks were to be seen in the marshes
near the railways, scarcely disturbed by the passage of the train ;
flocks of doves rose from the bushes here and there; owls hovered
about in a scared sort of way, as if ashamed of being seen out in
the honest sunlight ; and on many a tree top was perched a
solitary buzzard or vulture. Later in the forenoon small flocks of
the military starlings were frequently sighted, their brilliant scarlet
plumage showing to great advantage against the pale green bushes
of the hill sides. After passing the summit level we rattled down
the incline towards Llallai, at what seemed to me to be a very
high speed. I kept looking out of the window at first, watching
the engine disappearing from sight as it suddenly swept round an
abrupt curve and entered a cutting, and admiring the wriggling
of the train as it swiftly threaded its way in and out among the
hills. Sometimes our route would seem to lead us into a cul-de-
sac of the hills, and when apparently almost at the end of it, the
engine would abruptly alter her course and sweep away in a
direction nearly at right angles to its former course, dragging the
docile and flexible chain of carriages away with it. I had missed
all this on the upward journey— I suppose because our slower
speed then made curves and cuttings look less alarming. After
a while, I began to reflect on the probable consequences of our
suddenly coming upon a flock of heavy cattle in one of these
nasty cuttings, and the more I pondered the more I became
convinced that although the cow-catcher of our engine was well
able to cope with a single bullock or even two, yet that in the
'mw-
93
case of our colliding with a flock of half-a-dozen or so, something
unpleasant must surely happen. This was not a cheering subject
of thought, so I turned away from the window and tried to
interest myself in the contents of a Chilian newspaper. A few days
previously, I heard that a single bullock had been met with on
this same incline, and had been satisfactorily accounted for by the
“ cow-catcher.” The body was smashed to pieces and thrown off
the track, but the people in the train (one of whom was my
informant) experienced only a very slight shock. At Llallai station
we stopped for breakfast, for which the cold air of the morning
had sufficiently prepared us, and in the afternoon we arrived
comfortably at Valparaiso.
V7e again stayed at Coquimbo from the 23 rd to the 30th of
August, having been obliged to return there on account of a
court-martial. The appearance of the country had changed very
much since our previous visit. Bare tracts of sand had given
place to an uniform coating of verdure, and a great variety of
flowering plants were visible in full bloom. There was a species
of Aristolochia very common on the rocky hills, whose large
pitcher-shaped perianth frequently imprisoned a number of flies
of different species, and I found that I could add materially to
my entomological collection by examining these plants, and
despoiling them of their living prey, for most of the pitchers
contained living flies, and some of them the remains of insects
apparently in a half-digested state. This flower constitutes a
very effectual fly-trap ; and I once noticed a great bluebottle-
fly endeavouring in vain to work his way over the “ chevaux-
de-frise ” of white hairs, which, with their ends pointing inwards,
studded the interior of the tube.
During this stay I made a trip to the copper mines of
Brillador, which are worked in connection with the smelting
houses at Compania. Both establishments are the property
of Mr. Lambert, an Lnglish gentleman residing at Swansea,
whose Chilian manager is Mr. Weir, to whom I have already
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