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 19, 1835.
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 characterised 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: hence, also, they are easily cultivated by irrigation.