As the country was utterly
desert, we took a cargo and a half of barley mixed with chopped
straw. About two leagues above the town a broad valley called the
"Despoblado," or uninhabited, branches off from that one by which
we had arrived. Although a valley of the grandest dimensions, and
leading to a pass across the Cordillera, yet it is completely dry,
excepting perhaps for a few days during some very rainy winter. The
sides of the crumbling mountains were furrowed by scarcely any
ravines; and the bottom of the main valley, filled with shingle,
was smooth and nearly level. No considerable torrent could ever
have flowed down this bed of shingle; for if it had, a great
cliff-bounded channel, as in all the southern valleys, would
assuredly have been formed. I feel little doubt that this valley,
as well as those mentioned by travellers in Peru, were left in the
state we now see them by the waves of the sea, as the land slowly
rose. I observed in one place where the Despoblado was joined by a
ravine (which in almost any other chain would have been called a
grand valley), that its bed, though composed merely of sand and
gravel, was higher than that of its tributary.
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