A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before

by Daniel Defoe

Here my patron showed me, that in the hollow which I mentioned in the middle of this way, and at the bottom of those gulleys, or places worn as above in the rocks, there were often found pieces of gold, and sometimes, after a rain, very great quantities; and that there were few of the little Chilian cottages which I had seen where they had not sometimes a pound or two of gold dust and lumps of gold by them, and he was mistaken, if I was willing to stay and make the experiment, if we did not find some even then, in a very little search.

The Chilian mountaineer at whose house we stopped to dine had gone with us, and he hearing my patron say thus, ran presently to the hollow channel in the middle, where there was a kind of fail or break in it, which the water, by falling perhaps two or three feet, had made a hollow deeper than the rest, and which, though there was no water then running, yet had water in it, perhaps the quantity of a barrel or two. Here, with the help of two of the servants and a kind of scoop, he presently threw out the water, with the sand, and whatever was at bottom among it, into the ordinary watercourse; the water falling thus hard, every scoopful upon the sand or earth that came out of the scoop before it, washed a great deal of it away; and among that which remained, we might plainly see little lumps of gold shining as big as grains of sand, and sometimes one or two a little bigger.

This was demonstration enough to us. I took up some small grains of it, about the quantity of half a quarter of an ounce, and left my midshipmen to take up more, and they stayed indeed so long, that they could scarce see their way to overtake us, and brought away about two ounces in all, the Chilian and the servants freely giving them all they found.

When we had travelled about nine miles more in this winding frightful narrow way, it began to grow towards night, and my patron talked of taking up our quarters as we had before; but his gentleman put him in a mind of a Chilian, one of their old servants, who lived in a turning among the mountains, about half a mile out of our way, and where we might be accommodated with a house, or place at least, for our cookery. Very true, says our patron, we will go thither; and there, seignior, says he, turning to me, you shall see an emblem of complete felicity, even in the middle of this seat of horror; and you shall see a prince greater, and more truly so, than King Philip, who is the greatest man in the world.

Accordingly we went softly on, his gentleman having advanced before, and in about half a mile we found a turning or opening on our left, where we beheld a deep large valley, almost circular, and of about a mile diameter, and abundance of houses or cottages interspersed all over it, so that the whole valley looked like an inhabited village, and the ground like a planted garden.

We who, as I said, had been for some miles ascending, were so high above the valley, that it looked as the lowlands in England do below Box Hill in Surrey; and I was going to ask how we should get down? but, as we were come into a wider space than before, so we had more daylight; for though the hollow way had rendered it near dusk before, now it was almost clear day again.

Here we parted with the first Chilian that I mentioned, and I ordered one of my midshipmen to give him a hat, and a piece of black baize, enough to make him a cloak, which so obliged the man that he knew not what way to testify his joy; but I knew what I was doing in this, and I ordered my midshipman to do it that he might make his acquaintance with him against another time, and it was not a gift ill bestowed, as will appear in its place.

We were now obliged to quit our mules, who all took up their quarters at the top of the hill, while we, by footings made in the rocks, descended, as we might say, down a pair of stairs of half a mile long, but with many plain places between, like foot-paces, for the ease of going and coming.

Thus, winding and turning to avoid the declivity of the hill, we came very safe to the bottom, where my patron's gentleman brought our new landlord, that was to be, who came to pay his compliments to us.

He was dressed in a jerkin made of otter-skin, like a doublet, a pair of long Spanish breeches, of leather dressed after the Spanish fashion, green, and very soft, and which looked very well, but what the skin was, I could not guess; he had over it a mantle of a kind of cotton, dyed in two or three grave brown colours, and thrown about him like a Scotsman's plaid; he had shoes of a particular make, tied on like sandals, flat-heeled, no stockings, his breeches hanging down below the calf of his leg, and his shoes lacing up above his ancles. He had on a cap of the skin of some small beast like a racoon, with a bit of the tail hanging out from the crown of his head backward, a long pole in his hand, and a servant, as oddly dressed as himself, carried his gun; he had neither spado nor dagger.