After wishing him good-bye on the 18th of May, we got under way and steered for Coquimbo. On gaining an offing of about ten miles, and looking in towards the Chilian coast, to which we were then pursuing a parallel course, we saw the lowlands partially veiled in a thin stratum of mist, above which towered magnificently the snowy summit of Aconcagua, 23,220 feet in height. As we approached the Bay of Coquimbo, we passed through immense shoals of fishes, which sheered off in great confusion to either side of our bows with the parting waves. On subsequently hauling in the "patent log," it was found that the revolving blades had disappeared, the towing-line having been chopped in two just above its attachment. This was probably the work of some hungry and indiscriminating shark, whose stomach must have been put to a severe trial in endeavouring to digest this angular and unwholesome piece of metal.
The port of Coquimbo, where we stayed from the 19th of May to the 16th of July, derives whatever importance it has got from being one of the best (if not the very best) of the anchorages on the Chilian coast, and from its connection with the copper trade. It is brought into communication with the mines and smelting works by means of a line of railway, which, independently of its collateral branches, pierces the copper-producing country to a distance of sixty miles. The copper, either in the form of ingots, bars, or regulus, is shipped to Europe—principally to England—in steamers or sailing vessels. The country, as far as the eye can reach from the anchorage, is a mere sandy desert, dotted here and there with an odd oasis of cultivated land, which has been rendered productive by means of artificial irrigation. Trees are rare; but within the last few years the eucalyptus has been introduced, and with great success. In properly irrigated localities it thrives and grows with great rapidity,—in half-a-dozen years rising to a height of sixty feet,—and forming masses of foliage, which, by the shade it affords, increases the productiveness of the neighbouring soil.
Coquimbo has been rendered celebrated for its shell terraces by the writings of Darwin, Basil Hall, and others. These are long plateaux of variable size, sometimes a couple of hundred yards, sometimes a mile in width, with their sharply-defined free margins running more or less parallel to the curved outline of the sea beach, and extending inland by a series of gradations, like the tiers of boxes in a theatre. There are five or six of these terraces; that furthest inland being about 250 feet above the sea-level, and its free margin being about six miles from the beach. They are of entirely marine origin, and abound in shells of existing species, and they testify to the different periods of elevation to which this part of the continent has been subjected.
On the night of the 2nd of June we felt a slight shock of earthquake. The cable rattled in the hawse-pipe as if it were being violently shaken below by some giant who had got hold of the other end; and the ship vibrated and surged up and down as if she had been struck by a wave coming vertically from the bottom of the sea. The shock lasted about ten seconds, and then all was again silent. Earthquakes of this magnitude are of common occurrence in Chili.
One day a large party of us went on a shooting excursion to Las Cardas, an estate occupying a mountain valley thirty-six miles from Coquimbo, and belonging to Mr. Lambert, an English gentleman. For this trip we were indebted to Mr. Weir, the courteous manager of Mr. Lambert's mines, smelting works, and estate, who not only provided a special train to convey us to the shooting ground, but entertained us there most sumptuously. The estate of "Las Cardas" lies at the termination of the southernmost part of the two valleys which open into the Bay of Coquimbo, and beyond this station the railway pursues its further course over the brow of a hill called the "Cuesta," which it ascends by a series of zigzags. Although its route here appears, at first sight, circuitous enough, the gradient of the incline is an average of one in thirty feet, ranging as high as one in twenty-five. We found it interesting to stop for a while at the station and watch our departing train trailing along its zigzag course up the hillside, as it steamed on towards the inland terminus of the line, viz., "Rio Grande," which was some thirty miles further on. The "Rio Grande" station is 2,000 feet above the level of the Coquimbo terminus at the other end.
In the bed of a broad valley, and in the gullies communicating with it laterally from the hills, we expected to get a good many partridges; but owing to the thickness of the brushwood, and the absence of dogs, we saw very few, and shot fewer still. However, we were assured that the birds were there, and only wanted proper stirring up to make them visible; so that as we were every minute expecting that the next moment a great covey would start up from the bushes, and consequently kept our guns ready for action, we managed to keep up the requisite amount of excitement for several hours without materially violating the spirit of the regulations of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Society.
In the evening we assembled at a clump of trees, which seemed to be a favourite roosting-place for doves; and as the birds came down from the hills to take up their quarters for the night, they afforded us some very nice shooting while the daylight lasted. The most interesting birds which I noticed in the valley were two species of Pteroptochus, the smaller of which was almost identical in general character with the Tapaculo of Coquimbo, where it inhabits the low rocky hills, and attracts attention by its barking noise, and by the odd manner in which it erects its tail. Although the barking noise is heard frequently, and sometimes within a few yards of one, yet the bird itself is seen comparatively rarely. The bird of Las Cardas, however, might with a little care be seen, whilst uttering its odd programme of noises, as it stood under the overhanging branches of some large bush. On being startled it makes off in a peculiar manner, taking long strides rather than hops, and moving in a series of sharp curves in and out among the bushes. In adapting itself to these curves, the body of the bird is inclined considerably to the inner side, so that in this position, with its long legs and great clumsy tail, it forms a truly grotesque object. Examples of the larger species of Pteroptochus (P. albicollis) were generally to be seen in pairs, perched on the summit of a tall bush, the white throat and white stripes over the eye showing conspicuously.
We sailed from Coquimbo on the 16th of July, and shaped our course for the Islands Felix and Ambrose, which lie about five hundred miles to the north-west of Coquimbo. The object of this cruise was to take some deep-sea soundings between the mainland and the above-mentioned islands. The weather was, for the most part, very unfavourable, the ship rolling and kicking diabolically, and making our lives very miserable. On the afternoon of the 20th, St. Ambrose, the eastward island of the two, hove in sight, but as the day was too far advanced to admit of our landing, we "lay-to" about six miles to windward of it. Viewing the island at this distance from the eastward, it presented the appearance of a roughly cubical flat-topped mass of rock, leaning slightly to the northward, and bounded—so far as one could see—by perpendicular cliffs of a gloomy and forbidding aspect, which rose to an altitude of 1,500 feet. As we approached the island on the following morning its appearance by no means improved, and nowhere could be seen any break in the rampart of lofty cliffs, which seemed to forbid our disturbing their solitude. We looked in vain for the "sheltered cove," where, as the sailing instructions say, "there is good landing for boats at all times of the year." After making the circuit of the island, we "lay-to" about a mile from the N.E. cliff, and two boats were sent to reconnoitre, in one of which I took passage. After pulling a considerable distance along the foot of the cliffs, we at length succeeded, though with great difficulty, in landing at the foot of a spur of basaltic rock, which sloped down from the cliffs at a high angle. The first thing that attracted our attention was a grotesque-looking crab (Grapsus variegatus), of a reddish-brown colour, mottled on the carapace with yellow spots. It scuttled about in a most independent way, and seemed quite indifferent as to whether it trotted over the bottoms of the rock pools, or ran up the steep face of the rock to a height of forty feet above the water-line. Sea-birds innumerable flew about us in all directions, but on careful inspection we could only muster up three different species; viz., a large white-winged gannet (Sula), a plump dark-coloured petrel (Œstrelata defilippiana), and a slender white and grey tern (Anous).[1] The petrels were nesting in the rock crevices. The nest consisted of a few withered twigs and dirty feathers, forming a very scanty bed on the hard rock, and containing a solitary white egg. The birds stuck bravely to their nests, and would not relinquish their charge until, with bill and claws, they had given an account of themselves, calculated to rather astonish an incautious intruder. Nevertheless, I subsequently ascertained, by dissection of specimens taken from the nests, that both male and female birds take part in the duty of hatching. The rock in this locality was almost completely sterile; only three or four plants (stunted undershrubs) were found, which eked out a miserable existence among fragments of crumbling rock.
[1] These and other birds collected during the cruise have been described and determined by Mr. R. Bowdler Sharpe, the distinguished ornithologist of the British Museum.
The island is of volcanic formation. The cliffs which we examined displayed a section, fully 1,000 feet deep, of various layers of tuff, laterite, and scoriæ, which, for the most part, stretched out horizontally, and were intersected in every conceivable direction by dykes of basalt. In some places ridges or spurs of rock projected like buttresses from the vertical cliff; and where we landed the spur was composed of a vertical dyke of basalt flanked by a crumbling scoriaceous rock, which latter was being worn away by the action of waves and weather much more rapidly than its core of basalt. The columnar blocks of which the basalt was composed were bedded horizontally; i.e., at right angles to the plane of the dyke, so that the appearance of the whole was strikingly suggestive of an immense stone staircase. After a stay of an hour and a half we were signalled to return on board, as Captain Maclear was obliged to get under way, and accordingly at half-past twelve we were sailing away to the southward, leaving this comparatively unknown island as a prize for future explorers.