- We descended the mountain, and passed
some beautiful little spots, with rivulets and fine trees.
Having slept at the same hacienda as before, we rode during the
two succeeding days up the valley, and passed through Quillota,
which is more like a collection of nursery-gardens than
a town.
The orchards were beautiful, presenting one mass
of peach-blossoms. I saw, also, in one or two places the
date-palm; it is a most stately tree; and I should think a
group of them in their native Asiatic or African deserts must
be superb. We passed likewise San Felipe, a pretty straggling
town like Quillota. The valley in this part expands into
one of those great bays or plains, reaching to the foot of the
Cordillera, which have been mentioned as forming so curious
a part of the scenery of Chile. In the evening we reached
the mines of Jajuel, situated in a ravine at the flank of the
great chain. I stayed here five days. My host the superintendent
of the mine, was a shrewd but rather ignorant Cornish
miner. He had married a Spanish woman, and did not
mean to return home; but his admiration for the mines of
Cornwall remained unbounded. Amongst many other questions,
he asked me, "Now that George Rex is dead, how
many more of the family of Rexes are yet alive?" This Rex
certainly must be a relation of the great author Finis, who
wrote all books!
These mines are of copper, and the ore is all shipped to
Swansea, to be smelted.
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