I was not a little astonished on hearing that, in this country, where there is yet no post, or, indeed, any regular means of conveyance from one place to another, that a railroad was about being constructed from here to Santiago.  The work has been undertaken by an English company, and the necessary measurements already begun.  As the localities are very mountainous, the railroad will have to make considerable windings, in order to profit by the level tracts, and this will occasion an enormous outlay, quite out of proportion to the present state of trade or the amount of passenger traffic.  At present, there are not more than two or three vehicles a day from one place to the other, and if by chance ten or fifteen passengers come from Santiago to Valparaiso, the thing is talked of over the whole town.  This has given rise to the belief that the construction of a railroad has merely been seized on as an excuse, in order to enable those concerned to search about the country undisturbed for gold and silver.

Persons discovering mines are highly favoured, and have full right of property to their discovery, being obliged merely to notify the same to the government.  This licence is pushed to such an extent, that if, for instance, a person can advance any plausible grounds for asserting that he has found a mine in a particular spot, such as under a church or house, etc., he is at liberty to have either pulled down, provided he is rich enough to pay for the damage done.

About fifteen years ago, a donkey driver accidentally hit upon a productive silver mine.  He was driving several asses over the mountain, when one of them ran away.  He seized a stone, and was about to throw it after the animal, but stumbled and fell to the ground, while the stone escaped from his grasp, and rolled away.  Rising in a great passion, he snatched a second from the earth, and had drawn his arm to throw the stone, when he was struck by its uncommon weight.  He looked at it more closely, and perceived that it was streaked with rich veins of pure silver.  He preserved the stone as a treasure, marked the spot, drove his asses home, and then communicated his important discovery to one of his friends, who was a miner.  Both of them then returned to the place, which the miner examined, and pronounced the soil full of precious ore.  Nothing was now wanting save capital to carry on their operations.  This they procured by taking the miner’s employer into partnership, and in a few years all three were rich men.

The six days had now elapsed, and the captain sent me a message to be on board with my bag and baggage the next day, as he intended putting out to sea in the evening; but on the morning of his intended departure, my evil genius conducted a French man-of-war into the harbour.  Little imagining that this was destined to overturn all my plans, I proceeded very tranquilly to the landing-place, where I met the captain hastening to meet me, with a long story about his half-cargo, and the necessity he was under of completing his freight with provisions for the use of the French garrison at Tahiti, and so forth:  in a word, the end of the matter was, that I was informed we should have to stop another five days.