The former circumstance I should have expected, from the less mixture, during the dry season, of cold water; but the latter statement appears very strange and contradictory.

The periodical increase during the summer, when rain never falls, can, I think, only be accounted for by the melting of the snow: yet the mountains which are covered by snow during that season are three or four leagues distant from the springs.

I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of my informer, who, having lived on the spot for several years, ought to be well acquainted with the circumstance,--which, if true, certainly is very curious: for we must suppose that the snow-water, being conducted through porous strata to the regions of heat, is again thrown up to the surface by the line of dislocated and injected rocks at Cauquenes; and the regularity of the phenomenon would seem to indicate that in this district heated rock occurred at a depth not very great.
One day I rode up the valley to the farthest inhabited spot.
Shortly above that point, the Cachapual divides into two deep tremendous ravines, which penetrate directly into the great range.
I scrambled up a peaked mountain, probably more than six thousand feet high.

Here, as indeed everywhere else, scenes of the highest interest presented themselves.

It was by one of these ravines that Pincheira entered Chile and ravaged the neighbouring country.