Our road lay through a rich country, intersected by small rivers; with the distant snowy chain of the Andes as a background, and through thickly planted groves of poplars, growing in long shady avenues, fragrant with perfume from the magnificent roses which blossomed beneath their shade.  In the course of our four hours’ drive, we crossed a great many streams, in some of which the water was deep enough to come in at the bottom of the carriage, and cause us to tuck ourselves up on the seats; there was always a little pleasing excitement and doubt, as we approached one of these rivulets, as to whether we were to be inundated or not.  We met a good many people riding and walking about in their holiday clothes, and at all the cabarets groups of talkers, drinkers, and players were assembled.

The cottages we have seen by the roadside have been picturesque but wretched-looking edifices, generally composed of the branches of trees stuck in the ground, plastered with mud and thatched with reeds.  Two outhouses, or arbours, consisting of a few posts and sticks, fastened together and overgrown with roses and other flowers, serve respectively as a cool sitting-room and a kitchen, the oven being invariably built on the ground outside the latter, for the sake of coolness.  The women, when young, are singularly good-looking, with dark complexions, bright eyes, and luxuriant tresses, which they wear in two plaits, hanging down their backs far below the waist.  The men are also, as a rule, fine-looking.  In fact, the land is good, and everybody and everything looks prosperous.  The beasts are up to their knees in rich pasture, are fat and sleek, and lie down to chew the cud of contentment, instead of searching anxiously for a scanty sustenance.  The horses are well fed, and their coats are fine and glossy, and the sheep, pigs, and other animals are in equally good condition.  It is therefore a cheery country to travel through, and at this spring-time of the year one sees it in its highest perfection.

Before reaching Talca we had to cross the Maule, a wide, deep river, with a swift current.  The carriage was first put on board a large flat-bottomed boat, into which the horses then jumped, one by one, the last to embark tumbling down and rolling among the legs of the others.  With a large oar the boat was steered across the stream, down which it drifted about 200 yards into shallow water, where the boatmen jumped out and towed us to a convenient landing-place.  Here we found several people waiting to be ferried over.  A troop of mules having been driven into the water, which they seemed rather to enjoy, swam across safely, though they were carried some distance down the river.