the course of the numerous small rivers along
the valleys, the landscape appears literally black
with the inconceivable multitudes of cattle
covering it as far as the eye can reach. No
European can form any adequate idea of the
appearance in such a scene of such vast bodies
of cattle—all in their wild and natural
condition. Not a tree to be seen, except the few
planted near a solitary rancho, or house, the
lofty, multiform, black, and weather-beaten
cliffs of the Sierra extending far, as the
background, and the entire intermediate space of
hills and valleys innumerable, covered most
densely with the wild cattle, whose
multitudinous groups appear to be only divided by
the numerous rivers intersecting the district,
and throwing a living brightness through it:
—this is a picture which powerfully struck
my mind with an ineffaceable impression of
another phase, differing from the many I had
received in the course of my previous travels,
of Nature's wildest grandeur.

Generally there is scarcely any perceptible
movement in those multitudes of cattle:
densely thronged together, the motions of
individual animals are not discernible at any
distance. Occasionally, and frequently, this
aspect of the scene is changed, and the
picture becomes suddenly animated in a manner
most striking. A troop of a thousand or two
of wild horses rush on to the scene in their
wildest speed, with their long tails streaming
in the air, and their shaggy manes all
dishevelled; snorting and neighing, they pass
like a living shade over the top of a hill, and
as suddenly disappear in the valley beyond,
rising and disappearing again and again,
disturbing, in their reckless course, and breaking
the groups of cattle, previously so quiet and
seemingly motionless.

In the Pampas, where also cattle abound,
vast numbers are lost in the very dry
summers, it is supposed for want of moister
pasturage; but in the valleys of the Sierra
that calamity is prevented by the numerous
rivers there flowing,—a circumstance which I
suppose may, in some measure, account for
the multitudinous congregation of cattle there.
Another curiosity of the Sierra is the
peculiar kind of wood it produces, which is
not to be found in any other district. This is
the wood of the curumamuel tree, which
grows in extensive forests, and covers the
Sierra in many parts, over many miles
together. The leaf of these trees ends in a hard
spiked thorn, which, combined with their
density and close proximity in the forest,
form, in fact, a thicket which it is quite
impossible for any human being to pass through,
or even enter. Nevertheless, it is throughout
the summer, and especially at the commencement
of winter, the resort and abode of
numberless horned cattle, as well as lions,
and other beasts. The stature of these trees
is never higher than about five feet.

It is the custom at the commencement of
every winter to set fire to these forests, for
the twofold purpose of driving out the
numerous horned cattle, lions, and other
beasts taking refuge there, and of getting
wood entirely dry, in anticipation of the rainy
season; and, as a provision necessary to
protect the wood from the influences of water,
it being certain that, after the trunks of these
trees have become charred and blackened by
fire, water has no longer any influence upon
them.

Such conflagrations often continue for
several weeks, and form a most magnificent
spectacle. Imagine to yourselves one of
those transcendently beautiful nights, known
only in Southern climates, when myriads of
intensely shining stars illuminate the bright
and clearly blue firmament, covering, with
the sanctity of stillness, the repose of earth
with all its living terrors, and all its hushed
joys and sorrows, its natural glories, and its
unnatural ambitions; imagine yourselves at
such an hour upon the wild Sierra, thinking
only of the beautiful and the sublime in
harmony with the scene, or perchance of the
quietude of a home far away, with its tranquil
household delights—when, suddenly, as though
the flame had been caught from a passing
flash of lightning, you behold the leaves and
the branches of many and far-extending
forests gradually consuming, and the
surrounding grass throwing upward myriads of
sparks above the flaming masses; imagine
that you behold the increasing flames,
compact as one living principle of the element
itself, marching and luridly dilating through
the forests, and along the valleys, and over
the hills and cliffs, and through the defiles,
arousing the wild beasts, whose agonized
roaring awake the startled mountains
themselves, with aspects wearing the burning hue
of all around;—and you have pictured for
yourselves, as well as I who have beheld it,
the magnificent spectacle of one of those
conflagrations.

The cliffs, which form three sides of the
basin near the Loma de Ulallatue, are
overgrown with various kinds of grass and wild
flowers of luxuriant growth. It is considered
rather a singular fact, that thousands of loros,
or small parrots, take refuge and abide among
those cliffs, and make their nests there in
holes. The inaccessibility of the situation
alone prevents their entire destruction; for
no good-will appears to be entertained to
them, on account of the ruin they effect in
every plantation. Towards the sea, the Sierra
gradually becomes less elevated, and terminates
at a distance of between two and three
leagues from the sea.

But the mountainous character of the
district of the Sierra does not terminate at
that point; for on the beach the Downs
appear more like mountains than anything
else. They, like those of the Sierra, present
the most striking and uncommon forms. I
visited them in the company of a friend who
had been shipwrecked in this very spot in a