Rancagua, the provincial capital, is a dirty, odoriferous, dilapidated adobe city of 10,380 people with the outward appearance of decay. A walk down the main street which is named Brazil belies the general appearance of the town for its sidewalks throng with peasants from whose shoulders hang multicolored shawls. Horsemen wearing red ponchos, their spurs clanking, trot down the pebble-paved street that is lined with squalid one-story shops. Although only fifty-four miles south of Santiago, the place is a good market town; of the numerous shops those that deal in dry goods, draperies, and saddles appear to do the most lucrative trade. There is only one respectable appearing spot in the city, and that is the small plaza in the urban center which is embellished by a bronze equestrian statue of O'Higgins, his horse trampling a Spaniard. Of the several apologies for hotels, none were inviting and rather than to eat at one of their restaurants, it is best to go hungry. The only decent place to eat is at the railroad station. One of the taverns is named "The North American" with a proprietor of our own nationality but its business is mostly bar trade, catering to the incoming and outgoing trade of the miners at El Teniente Mine. The day I was at Rancagua was Sunday which I was told was the day on which the prisoners of the jail were allowed to receive guests. I imagine that nearly everybody in the town either had relatives or friends in jail for in front of the building which is on the main street a mob had collected to await admittance.
Street in Rancagua
The inhabitants of the town are tanned dark brown, and although strongly built and powerful I noticed several who were afflicted with the same malignant blood disease which the Swiss guards imported into France from Italy during the Middle Ages. I was also surprised to see a little girl about twelve years old on the street who had the leprosy, the only case I have ever seen in Chile.
The Braden Copper Company of North American ownership has a 2½-foot gauge railroad that runs up to their copper mine, El Teniente, which is about forty-five miles up the Cachapoal River above Rancagua; the Baths of Cauquenes is one of their stations. This mine which was opened in 1907 now has six hundred employees, many of whom are from the United States and Canada.
From Rancagua the train ride of an hour and a half first crosses the Plain where fat cattle graze in knee high clover, and then skirts along the ledge of the mountains overlooking the broad terraces or selvas of the Cachapoal River, winding around promontories on a roadbed no wider than the coaches; any mishap would be sufficient to send the train rolling down the mountainside killing all the occupants of the cars. The station of Baños, (meaning Baths) is high above the gorge of the river. Across the canyon on a ledge of rocks can be seen the buildings of the thermal establishment, but before the pedestrian gets there he must walk a good half-mile. A foot path zigzags to the canyon bottom and an arm of the river is crossed by a cement bridge to a rocky islet. Another bridge, this one a swinging one, suspended above a whirlpool brings one again to terra firma on the left bank. One now ascends another zigzag path to a forest of elm, ash, and locust, the foliage being so thick that the sun's rays never penetrate it. Another suspension bridge which spans a silvery cascade is reached and beyond it is the hotel, a low, squat adobe building painted red, whose many rooms open onto two patios.
The name Cauquenes is Araucanian meaning wild pigeon. This bird, the ectopistes migratorius, sometimes called the voyager pigeon or the wood pigeon originally had its range from Labrador to the Straits of Magellan. Half a century ago they were numerous in the United States, but in this country they have been absolutely exterminated due to their having been killed off by hunters; great numbers which escaped the gun were burned in the Arkansas forest fires four decades ago. Chile is the only country on the face of this earth where they still exist, and it is probable that they will continue to live there as the inhabitants are extremely averse to killing them, the ignorant classes believing that they bring good luck and that it is an ill omen to kill them. At the present time they are not found in Chile north of Cauquenes; formerly there were great numbers in the vicinity of the Cachapoal hence the name of the baths.
