While the gentlemen were smoking, I went to see a poor engine-driver who had met with a bad accident, and who was lying at this hotel.  He is a fine healthy-looking Englishman, and he told me that, until this misfortune, he had never known a day’s illness in his life.  It seems that, at four o’clock in the afternoon of this day week, he was sent off with a special engine to convey an important message.  Something going wrong during the journey, he slackened speed, and, in stepping off the engine to see what was the matter, his foot slipped, and the wheel of the tender went over it.  He had no one with him who could manage the engine alone, so he was obliged to get up again, and endeavour to struggle on to Talca; but after going a few miles further, the engine suddenly ran off the track, at a part of the unfinished line that had not yet been sufficiently ballasted.  They could not get it on again unaided, and one of the men had to start off and walk many miles before he could procure assistance.  Altogether, poor Clarke underwent forty-two hours of intense agony from the time of the accident until he received any medical attention.  In spite of this he is now doing well; and though the foot, which is in a bath of carbolic acid and water, looks very bad, he is in great spirits, because the three local doctors, in consultation, have decided that amputation will not be necessary.  He spoke in the highest terms of the kindness of our French host and his Spanish wife, the latter of whom, he says, has nursed him like a mother.  He certainly has the one large room in the house, and when I saw him his bed was comfortably made and arranged, flowers and fruit were on a table by his side, and everything looked as neat and snug as possible.  It was a treat to him to see some one fresh from the old country, and to hear all the news, and our voyage appeared to interest him greatly.  While I was with him one of his friends came in, who remembered me quite well, and who knew one or two people with whom we are acquainted, including the manager of Messrs. Bowdler and Chaffers’ yard, where the ‘Sunbeam’ was built.

[Illustration:  A Fellow Passenger]

Sunday, October 22nd.—­Though it was Sunday, we had no choice but to travel on, or we should not have been able to start until Tuesday.  We were therefore up at five o’clock, and at the station before seven.  From San Carlos, where we arrived at 8.15 a.m., we started for Linares, which was reached a couple of hours later.  It is a much smaller town than Chilian, but is built on exactly the same plan—­Plaza, cathedral, and all.  To-day the streets were crowded with men on horseback, who had brought their wives in, seated pillion-fashion on the crupper behind them, to attend mass.