In A Troop Each
Animal Carries On A Level Road, A Cargo Weighing 416 Pounds
(More Than 29 Stone), But In A Mountainous Country 100
Pounds Less; Yet With What Delicate Slim Limbs, Without Any
Proportional Bulk Of Muscle, These Animals Support So Great
A Burden!
The mule always appears to me a most surprising
animal.
That a hybrid should possess more reason, memory,
obstinacy, social affection, powers of muscular endurance,
and length of life, than either of its parents, seems to
indicate that art has here outdone nature. Of our ten animals,
six were intended for riding, and four for carrying cargoes,
each taking turn about. We carried a good deal of food in
case we should be snowed up, as the season was rather late
for passing the Portillo.
March 19th. - We rode during this day to the last, and
therefore most elevated, house in the valley. The number of
inhabitants became scanty; but wherever water could be
brought on the land, it was very fertile. All the main valleys
in the Cordillera are characterized by having, on both sides, a
fringe or terrace of shingle and sand, rudely stratified, and
generally of considerable thickness. These fringes evidently
once extended across the valleys and were united; and the
bottoms of the valleys in northern Chile, where there are no
streams, are thus smoothly filled up. On these fringes the
roads are generally carried, for their surfaces are even, and
they rise, with a very gentle slope up the valleys:
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