We travelled now along the narrow winding passage, which I mentioned before, for about four hours, until I found, that though we had ascended but gently, yet that, as we had done so for almost twenty miles together, we were got up to a frightful height, and I began to expect some very difficult descent on the other side; but we were made easy about two o'clock, when the way not only declined again to the east, but grew wider, though with frequent turnings and windings about, so that we could seldom see above half a mile before us.
We went on thus pretty much on a level, now rising, now falling; but still I found that we were a very great height from our first entrance, and, as to the running of the water, I found that it flowed neither east nor west, but ran all down the little turnings that we frequently met with on the north side of our way, which my patron told me fell all into the great valley where we saw the fire, and so passed off by a general channel north-west, until it found its way out into the open country of Chili, and so to the South Seas.
We were now come to another night's lodging, which we were obliged to take up with on the green grass, as we did the first night; but, by the help of our proveditor-general, my patron, we fared very well, our goat's flesh being reduced into so many sorts of venison, that none of us could distinguish it from the best venison we ever tasted.
Here we slept without any of the frightful things we saw the night before, except that we might see the light of the fire in the air at a great distance, like a great city in flames, but that gave us no disturbance at all.
In the morning our two hunters shot a deer, or rather a young fawn, before we were awake, and this was the first we met with in this part of our travel, and thus we were provided for dinner even before breakfast-time; as for our breakfast, it was always a Spanish one, that is to say, about a pint of chocolate.
We set out very merrily in the morning, and we that were Englishmen could not refrain smiling at one another, to think how we passed through a country where the gold lay in every ditch, as we might call it, and never troubled ourselves so much as to stoop to take it up; so certain is it, that it is easy to be placed in a station of life where that very gold, the heaping up of which is elsewhere made the main business of man's living in the world, would be of no value, and not worth taking off from the ground; nay, not of signification enough to make a present of, for that was the case here.
Two or three yards of Colchester baize, a coarse rug-like manufacture, worth in London about 15½d. per yard, was here a present for a man of quality, when, for a handful of gold dust, the same person would scarce say, Thank you; or, perhaps, would think himself not kindly treated to have it offered him.
We travelled this day pretty smartly, having rested at noon about two hours, as before, and, by my calculation, went about twenty-two English miles in all. About five o'clock in the afternoon, we came into a broad, plain open place, where, though it was not properly a valley, yet we found it lay very level for a good way together, our way lying almost east-south-east. After we had marched so about two miles, I found the way go evidently down hill, and, in half a mile more, to our singular satisfaction we found the water from the mountains ran plainly eastward, and, consequently, to the North Sea.
We saw at a distance several huts or houses of the mountaineer inhabitants, but went near none of them, but kept on our way, going down two or three pretty steep places, not at all dangerous, though something difficult.