Chili, with a fair wind and pleasant weather, || and where even the governor and viceroy, enmy Spanish doctor came to me, and told me hejoying a plentiful and luxurious life, they take no had a piece of news to acquaint me with, which, thought for the increase either of the king's rehe said, he believed, would please me very well, venues or the national wealth." This he spoke and this was, that one of the Spanish prisoners of the city of Mexico, whose greatness, and the was a planter, as it is called in the West Indies, number of its inhabitants, he said, was a disease or a farmer, as we should call it in England, of to the rest of the body." And what think you, Villa Rica, a town built by the Spaniards near seignior," said he, "that in that one city, where the foot of the Andes, above the town of Baldi- is neither silver or gold but what is brought from divia, and that he had entered into discourse the mountains of St Clara, the mines at St Auwith him upon the situation of those hills, the gustine's and Our Lady, some of which are an nature of the surface, the rivers, hollows, pas- hundred leagues from it, and yet there are more sages into them, &c., whether there were any Spaniards in Mexico than in both these two provalleys within the hills, of what extent, how digious empires of Chili and Peru." watered, what cattle, what people, how disposed, and the like, and, in short, if there was any passing over them; and he told me, in a few words, that he found him to be a very honest, frank, open sort of person, who seemed to speak without reserve, without the least jealousy or apprehension, and that, in a word, he believed I might have an ample discovery from him of all that I desired to know.

I was very glad of this news, you may be sure, and it was not many hours before I made him bring the Spaniard into the great cabin to me, where I treated him very civilly, and gave him opportunity several times to see himself very well used; and, indeed, all the Spaniards in the ship were very thankful for my bringing them out of the hands of the privateers, and took all occasions to let us see it.

I seemed not to believe him, and indeed I did not believe him at first, till he returned to me with a question,-" Pray, seignior capitain," says he, "how many Spaniards do you think there may be in this vast country of Chili?"-I told him I could make no guess of the numbers; but, without question, there were many thousands, intimating that I might suppose near an hundred thousand; at which he laughed heartily, and assured me that there were not above two thousand five hundred in the whole kingdom, besides women and children and some few soldiers, which they looked upon as nothing to inhabitants, because they were not settled anywhere.

"

I was indeed surprised, and began to name some large places, which I thought had singly more Spaniards in them than what he talked of. He presently ran over some of them; and naming Baldivia first, as the most southward, he asked me how many I thought were there? I told him about three hundred families. He smiled at me, and assured me there were not above three or four-and-fifty families in the whole place, and about twenty-five soldiers, although it was a fortification and a frontier. At Villa Rica, or the rich town, where he lived, he said there might be about sixty families, and a lieutenant with twenty soldiers. In a word, we passed over the many places between, and came to the capital, St Jago; where, after I had supposed there were were five thousand Spaniards, he protested to me there were not above eight hundred, including the viceroy's court, and including the | families at Valparaiso, which is the seaport, and excluding only the soldiers, which, as he said,

I said little the first time, but discoursed in general of America, of the greatness and opulence of the Spaniards there, the infinite wealth of the country &c.; and I remember well, discoursing once of the great riches of the Spaniards in America, the silver mines of Potosi, and other || places, he turned short upon me, smiling, and said We Spaniards are the worst nation in the world that such a treasure as this could have belonged to; for if it had fallen into any other hands than ours," says he, "they would have searched further into it before now."- I asked him what || he meant by that. I said I thought they had searched it thoroughly enough, for that I believed no nation in the world could ever have spread such vast dominions, and planted a country of such a prodigious extent, and have not only kept the possession of it, but have main-being the capital of the whole kingdom, might be tained the government also, and even inhabited it, with so few people.

Perhaps, seignior," says he, "you think, notwithstanding that opinion of yours, that we have many more people of our nation in New Spain than we have."-" I do not know," said I, "how many you may have; but if I should believe you have as many here as in Old Spain, it would be but a few in comparison of the infinite extent of the King of Spain's dominions in America." "And then," added he, I assure you, seignior, there is not one Spaniard to a thousand acres of land, take one place with another, throughout New Spain."

"Very well," said I, "then I think the riches and wealth of America is very well searched, in comparison to the number of people you have to search after it."-"No," says he "it is not, neither; for the greatest number of our people live in that part where the wealth is not greatest,"

about two hundred, and excluding the religions, who, he added, laughing, signified nothing to the planting a country, for they neither cultivated the land nor increased the people.

Our doctor, who was our interpreter, smiled | at this, but merrily said, That was very true, or ought to be so;" intimating that though the priests do not cultivate the land, yet they might chance to increase the people a little; but that was by the way. As to the number of inhabitants at St Jago, the doctor agreed with him, and said he believed he had said more than there was rather than less.

As then to the kingdom or empire of Peru, in which there are many considerable cities and places of note, such as Lima, Quitto, Cusco la Plata, and others, besides the great number of towns on the sea coasts, such as Port Arica, St Miguel, Payta, Guyaquil, Truxillo, and many others.

He answered, that it was true that the city of || tains, and if we see a bit of gold lie on the shore, Lima, with the town of Callao, was much it may be we will vouchsafe to lay off our cloak increased within a few years; and particularly and step forward to take it up; but if we were of late by the settling of between three and four sure to carry home as much as we could stand hundred French there, who came by the King of under, we would not strip and go to work in the Spain's license; but that before the coming of water to wash it out of the sand, or take the those gentlemen, at which he shook his head, pains to get it together; nor perhaps dishonour the country was richer, though the inhabitants ourselves so much as to be seen carrying a were not so many; and that, take it as it was load, no, not for all the value of the gold now, there could not be reckoned above fifteen itself. hundred families of Spaniards, excluding the soldiers and the clergy, which as above, he reckoned nothing as to the planting the country.

I laughed then indeed; and told him he was disposed to jest with his countrymen, or to speak ironically; meaning, that they did not take so We came then to discourse of the silver mines much pains as was required to make them effecat Petosi, and here he supposed, as I did also, a tually rich, but, that I supposed he would not very great number of people. "But, seignior," have me understand him as he spoke. He said, says he, "what people is it you are speaking of? I might understand as favourably as I pleased, There are many thousands of servants but few but I should find the fact to be true if I would masters; there is a garrison of four hundred go up with him to Villa Rica when I came to soldiers, always kept in arms and in good order, || Baldivia; and with that he made his compliment to secure the place and keep the negroes and to me and invited me to his house. criminals who work in the mines in subjection; I asked him with a con licentia, seignior, that but that there were not besides five hundred is, with pardon for so much freedom, that if he Spaniards, that is to say men, in the whole place lived in so rich a country, and where there was and its adjacents. So that, in short, he would so inexhaustible a treasure of gold, how he came not allow above seven thousand Spaniards into fall into this state of captivity, and what made the whole empire of Peru, and two thousand five him venture himself upon the sea to fall into hundred in Chili; at the same time allowing the hands of pirates? twice as many as both these in the city of Mexico only.

After this discourse was over, I asked him what he inferred from it as to the wealth of the country not being discovered? He answered, it was evident that it was for want of people that the wealth of the country lay hid; that there was infinitely more lay unenquired after than had yet been known; that there were several mountains in Peru equally rich in silver with that of Potosi ; and as for Chili, says he, and the country where we live, there is more gold at this time in the mountains of the Andes, and more easy to come at, than in all the world besides. Nay," says he, with some passion, "there is more gold every year washed down out of the Andes of Chili into the sea and lost there, than all the riches that go from New Spain to Europe in twenty years amount to."

This discourse fired my imagination, you may be sure, and I renewed it upon all occasions, taking more or less time every day to talk with this Spaniard upon the subject of cultivation of the lands, improvement of the country, and the like; always making such inquiries into the state of the mountains of the Andes as best suited my purpose, but yet so as not to give him the least intimation of my design.

He answered, that it was on the very foot or what he had been complaining of; and that having seen so much of the wealth of the country he lived in, and having reproached himself with that verv indolence which he now blamed all his countrymen for, he had resolved, in conjunction with two of his neighbours the Spaniards, and men of good substance, to set to work in a place in the mountains where they had found some gold, and had seen much washed down by the water, and to find what might be done in a thorough search after the fund or mine of it, which they were sure was not far off; and that he was going to Lima, and from thence, if he could not be supplied, to Panama, to buy negroes for the work, that they might carry it on with the better success.

This was a feeling discourse to me, and made such an impression on me, that I secretly resolved, that when I came to Baldivia, I would go up with this sincere Spaniard (for so I thought him to be, and so I found him) and would be an eye-witness to the discovery, which, I thought, was made to my hand, and which I found now I could make more effectual than by all the attempts I was like to make by second hand.

said so much of those things that I should be tempted to give him a visit as he had desired, and see those monstrous mountains of the Andes.

From this time I treated the Spaniard with more than ordinary courtesy, and told him if I One day, conversing with him again about was not captain of a great ship, and had a cargo the great riches of the country and of the moun-upón me of other gentlemen's estates, he had tains and rivers as above, I asked him, that seeing the place was so rich, why were they not all princes, or as rich as princes, that dwelt there? He shook his head, and said it was a great reproach upon them many ways; and when I He told me that if I would do him so much pressed him to explain himself, he answered it honour, I should not be obliged to any long stay, was occasioned by two things-namely, pride that he would procure mules for me at Baldivia, and sloth. 66 Seignior," says he, "we have so and that I should go, not to his house only, but much pride that we have no avarice, and we do to the mountain itself and see all that I desired, not covet enough to make us work for it. We and be back again in fourteen days at the farwalk about sometimes," says he, "on the banks thest. I shook my head as if it could not be, of the streams that come down from the moun- but he never left importuning me; and once or

twice, as if I had been afraid to venture myself || with him, he told me he would send for his two sons, and leave them in the ship as hostages for my safety.

I was fully satisffed as to that point, but did not let him know my mind yet; but every day we dwelt upon the same subject, and I travelled through the mountains and vallies so duly in every day's discourse with him, that when I afterwards came to the places we had talked of, it was as if I had looked over them in a map before.

I asked him if the Andes were a mere wall of mountains, contiguous and without intervals and spaces like a fortification or boundary to a country? Or, whether they lay promiscuous and distant from one another? And, whether there lay any way over them into the country beyond them.

He smiled when I talked of going over them. He told me they were so infinitely high, that no human creature could live upon the top; and withal so steep and so frightful, that if there was even a pair of stairs up on one side and down on the other, no man alive would dare to mount up or venture down.

But that, as for the notion of the hills being contiguous, like a wall that had no gates, that was all fabulous; that there were several fair entrances in among the mountains, and large, pleasant, and fruitful vallies among the hills, with pleasant rivers and numbers of inhabitants, and cattle and provisions of all sorts; and that some of the most delightful places to live in that were in the whole world, were among those vallies, in the very centre of the highest and most dreadful mountains.

“Well,” said I, "seignior, but how do they go out of one valley into another? And whither do they go at last?" He answered me, those vallies are always full of pleasant rivers and brooks which fall from the hills, and are formed generally into one principal stream to every vale; and that as these must have their outlets on one side of the hills, or on the other, so, following the course of those streams, one is always sure to find the way out of one valley into another, and at last out of the whole into the open country; so that it was very frequent to pass from one side to the other of the whole body of the mountains, and not go much higher up hill or down hill, compared to the hills in other places. It was true, he said, there was no abrupt visible parting in the mountains, that should seem like a way cut through from the bottom to the top, which would be indeed frightful; but that as they pass from some of the vallies to others, there are ascents and descents, windings and turnings, sloping up and sloping down, where we may stand on those little ridges, aud see the waters on one side run to the west, and on the other side to the east.

I asked him what kind of a country was on the other side? and how long time it would take up to go through from one side to the other? He told me, there were ways indeed that were more mountainous and uneasy, in which men kept upon the sides or declivity of the hills, in which the natives would go and guide others to go, and so might pass the whole ridge of the Andes in

eight or nine days; but that those ways were esteemed very dismal, lonely, and dangerous, because of wild beasts; but that through the vallies the way was easy and pleasant, and perfectly safe, only farther about; and that those ways a man might be sixteen or seventeen days going through.

I laid up all this in my heart, to make use of as I should have occasion; but I acknowledge that it was surprising to me, as it was so perfectly agreeing with the notion that I always entertained of those mountains, of the riches of them, the facility of access to and from them, and the easy passage from one side to another.

The next discourse I had with him upon this subject I began thus. "Well, seignior,” said I, "we are now come quite through the vallies and passages of the Andes, and methinks I see a vast open country before me on the other side; pray tell me, have you ever been so far as to look into that part of the world, and what kind of a country is it?"

He answered gravely, that he had been far enough several times, to look at a distance into the vast country I spake of. "And such indeed it is," said he; "and as we come upon the rising part of the hills, we see a great way, and a country without end; but as to any descriptions of it, I can say but little," added he, “only this, that it is a very fruitful country on that side next the hill. What it is farther, I know

not."

I asked him if there were any considerable rivers in it, and which way they generally run? He said, "It could not be, but that from such a ridge of mountains as the Andes, there must be a great many rivers on that side, as there were apparently on this; and that, as the country was infinitely larger, and their course in proportion longer, it would necessarily follow, that those small rivers would run one into another, and so form great navigable rivers, as was the case in the Rio de la Plata, which originally sprung from the same hills, about the city La Plata in Peru, and swallowing up all the streams of less note, became, by the mere length of its course, one of the greatest rivers in the world." That, as be observed most of those rivers ran rather southeastward than northward, he believed they ran away to the sea, a great way farther to the south than the Rio de la Plata; but as to what part of the coast they might come to the sea in, that he knew nothing of.

This account was so rational, that nothing could be more; and was, indeed, extremely satisfactory.

It was also very remarkable, that this agreed exactly with the accounts before given me by the two Chilian Indians, or natives, which I had on board, and with whom I still continued to discourse as occasion presented; but who, at this time, I removed into the Madagascar ship, to make room for these Spanish prisoners.

I observed the Spaniard was made very sen sible by my doctor of the obligation both he and his fellow-prisoners were under to me, in my persuading the privateers to set them at liberty, and in undertaking to carry them home to that part of Spain from whence they came; for as they had lost their cargo, their voyage seemed

to be at an end. The sense of the favour, I say, which I had done him, and was still doing him, in the civil treatment which I gave him, made this gentleman, for such he was in himself, and in his disposition, whatever he was by family, for that I knew nothing of; I say, it made him exceeding importunate with me, and with my doc-lutions, that ever any commander entrusted with tor, who spoke Spanish perfectly well, to go with him to Villa Rica.

weather and little wind) at Tucapel, or the river Imperial, within ten leagues of Baldivia, that is to say, off Cape Bonifacio, which is the north point of the entrance into the river of Baldivia; and here I took one of the most unaccountable, and I must needs acknowledge unjustifiable resoa ship of such force and a cargo of such consequence adventured upon before, and which I by no means recommend to any commander of a ship to imitate; and this was, to venture up into the country above one hundred and fifty miles from my ship, leaving the success of the whole richest ship and cargo that ever came out of those seas, to the care and fidelity of two or three men. Such was the unsatisfied thirst of new discoveries, which I brought out of England with me, and which I nourished at all hazards to the end of the voyage.

I made him no promise, but talked at a distance. I told him if he had lived by the sea and I could have sailed to his door in my ship would have made him a visit. He returned that he wished he could make the river of Baldi-voyage, the estates of my employers, and the via navigable for me, that I might bring my ship up to his door, and he would venture to say, that neither me nor all my ship's company should starve while we were with him. In the interval of these discourses I asked my doctor his opinion, whether he thought I might trust this Spaniard if I had a mind to go up and see the country for a few days?

46

However, though I condemn myself in the main for the rashness of the undertaking, yet let me do myself so much justice, as to leave it on record too, that I did not run this risk without all the needful precautions for the safety of the ship and cargo.

And first, I found out a safe place for the ships to ride; and this neither in the river of Tucapei, nor in the river of Baldivia, but in an opening or inlet of water without a name, about a league to the south of Tucapel, embayed and secured from almost all the winds that could blow; here the ships lay easy, with water enough, having about eleven fathoms good holding ground, and about half a league from shore.

Seignior," says he, "the Spaniards are, in some respects, the worst nation under the sun; they are cruel, inexorable, uncharitable, voracious, and in several cases treacherous; but in two things they are to be depended upon beyond all the nations in the world, that is to say, when they give their honour to perform any thing, and when they have a return to make for any favour received;" and here he entertained me with a long story of a merchant of Chartagena, who in a sloop was shipwrecked at sea, and was taken up by an English merchant on board a ship bound to London from Barbadoes or some other of our islands; that the English merchant meet- I left the supra-cargo and my chief mate, also ing another English ship bound to Jamaica, puta kinsman of my own, a true sailor, who had the Spanish merchant on board him, paid him for been a midshipman, but was now a lieutenant; his passage, and obliged him to set him on shore I say to those I left the command of both my on the Spanish coast, as near to Chartagena as ships, but with express orders not to stir, nor he could. This Spanish merchant could never unmoor upon any account whatever, life and rest until he found means to ship himself from death excepted, until my return, or until if I was Chartagena to the Havanna on the Galleons, from || dead, they heard what was become of me; no, thence to Cadiz in Old Spain, and from thence though they were to stay there six months, for to London, to find out the English merchant, they had provisions enough, and an excellent and make him a present to the value of a place for watering lay just by them; and I made thousand pistoles for saving his life, and for his all the men swear to me, that they would make civil returning him to Jamaica, &c. Whether no mutiny or disorder, but obey my said kinsthe story was true or not his inference from it man in one ship, and the supra-cargo in the was just; namely, that a Spaniard never forgot other in all things except removing from that a kindness; "But take it withal," says the doctor, place; and that if they should command them to that I believe it is as much the effect of their stir from thence, they would not so much as pride as of their virtue; for at the same time," touch a sail or a rope. said he, "they never forget an ill turn any more than they do a good one, and they frequently entail their enmities on their families, and prosecute the revenge from one generation to another, so that the heir has with the estate of his ancestors all the family broils upon his hands as he comes to his estate."

From all this he inferred, that as this Spaniard found himself so very much obliged to me, I might depend upon it that he had so much pride in him, that if he could pull down the Andes for me to go through, and I wanted it, he would do it for me; and that nothing would be a greater satisfaction to him than to find some way or other how to requite me.

All these discourses shortened our voyage, and we arrived fair and softly (for it was very good

When I had made all these conditions, and told my men that the design I went upon, was for the good of their voyage, for the service of the owners, and should, if it succeeded, be for all their advantages; I asked them if they were all willing I should go? to which they all answered that they were very willing, and would take the same care of the ships, and of all things belonging to them as if I were on board. This encouraged me greatly, and I now resolved nothing should hinder me.

Having thus concluded every thing, then, and not until then, I told my Spaniard that I had almost resolved to go along with him; at which he appeared exceedingly pleased, and indeed in a surprise of joy. I should have told you, that before I told him this, I had set all the rest of the

prisoners on shore, at their own request, just || between the port of Tucapel and the bay of the conception, except two men, who as he told me, lived in the open country beyond Baldivia, and, as he observed, were very glad to be set on shore with him, so to travel home, having lost what little they had in the ship, and to whom he communicated nothing of all the discourse we had had of the affair of the mountains.

their father laid a great many solemn charges upon them that they should not stir out of the ship till I came back safe, and that I gave them leave; and he made them promise that they would not and the young gentlemen kept their word so punctually, that when our supercargo, whom I left in command, offered to let them go on shore several times to divert them with shooting and hunting, they would not stir out of the ship, and did not till I came back again.

I also dismissed now the two Chilian Indians, but not without a very good reward proportioned to, not their trouble and time only, but propor-ready for my adventure, we set out, Captain tioned to what I seemed to expect of them, and filling them still with expectations that I would come again and take a journey with them into the mountains.

And now it became necessary that I should use the utmost freedom with my new friend the Spaniard, being, as I told him, to put my life in his hands and the prosperity of my whole adventure, both ship and ship's company.

Having gone this length, and made everything Merlotte, the Spanish doctor, the old mutineer, that was my second mate, and who was now captain of the Madagascar ship, and myself, with two midshipmen, whom we took as servants, but who I resolved to make the directors of the main enterprise. As to the number, I found my Spaniard made no scruple of that, if it had been half my ship's company.

We set out, some on horses and some on mules, as we could get them, but the Spaniard and myself rode on two very good horses, being the same that his two sons came on. We arrived at a noble coutry seat about a league short of the town, where, at first, I thought we had been only to put in for refreshment; but I soon found, that it was really his dwelling house, and where his family and servants resided.

He told me he was sensible that I did put my life in his hands, and that it was a very great token of confidence in him, even such a one that he, being a stranger to me, had no reason to expect but he desired me to consider that he was a Christian, not a savage; that he was one, I had laid the highest obligation upon in voluntarily taking him out of the hands of the freebooters, where he might have lost his life; and, Here we were received like princes, and with as in the next place, he said, it was some argument much ceremony as if he had been a prince that that he was a gentleman, and that I should find entertained us. The mayor domo, or steward of him to be a man of honour: and, lastly, that it his house, received us, took in our baggage, and did not appear that he could make any advan-ordered our two servants to be taken care of. tage of me, or that he could get any thing by I need not tell you that the Spaniard did all using me ill; and if even that was no argument that pride and ostentation was capable of inyet I should find when I came to his house that spiring him with to entertain us; and the truth he was not in a condition to want any thing that is, he could not have lived in a country in the might be gained, so much as to procure it by world more capable of gratifying his pride; for such a piece of villany and treachery, as to be here, without anything uncommon, he was able tray and destroy the man that had saved his life, to show more gold plate than many good famiand brought him out of the hands of the devil lies in our country have of silver; and as for safe to his country and family, when he might silver, it quite eclipses the appearance, or rather have been carried away, God knows whither. took away the very use of pewter, of which we But to conclude all, he desired me to accept the did not see one vessel, no, not in the meanes offer he had made me at sea (viz.) that he would part of his house. It is true, I believe, the Spasend for his two sons, and leave them on board || niard had not a piece of plate or of any household the ship as hostages for my safety, and desired furniture which we did not see, except what they might be used on board no otherwise than belonged to the apartment of his wife; and it is I was used withshim in the country. to be observed, that the women never appeared, except at a distance and in the gardens, and then being under veils, we could not know the lady from her women, or the maids from the mistress

I was ashamed to accept such an offer as this; but he pressed it earnestly, and importuned the doctor to move me to acccept it, telling him that he should not be easy if I did not, so that, in short, the doctor advised me to agree to it; and, accordingly, he hired a messenger and a mule, and sent away for his two sons to come to him; and such expedition the messenger made, that in six days he returned with the two sons and three servants, all on horseback. His two sons were very pretty well behaved youths, who appeared to be gentlemen in their very countenances; the eldest was about thirteen years old, and the other about eleven. I treated them on board, as I had their father, with all possible respect; and having entertained them two days, left order that they should be treated in the same manner when I was gone; and to this I added, aloud, that their father might hear it, that whenever they had a mind to go away, they should let them go. But

We were lodged every one in separate apartments, very well furnished, but two of them very nobly indeed; though all the materials fr furniture must be there at an excessive price. The way of lodging upon quilts, and in bed made pavillion-wise, after the Spanish custom, need not describe; but it surprised me to s the rooms hung with very rich tapestries, in part of the world where they must cost so dear.

We had Chilian wine served us up in round, gold cups, and water in large silver decanters that held, at least, five quarts a piece; these stood in our chamber. Our chocolate va brought us up in the same manner in deep cups all of gold, and it was made in vessels all d silver.

It would be troublesome to the very reader#