A mere rivulet of
water, in the course of an hour, would have cut a channel for
itself; but it was evident that ages had passed away, and no such
rivulet had drained this great tributary. It was curious to behold
the machinery, if such a term may be used, for the drainage, all,
with the last trifling exception, perfect, yet without any signs of
action. Every one must have remarked how mud-banks, left by the
retiring tide, imitate in miniature a country with hill and dale;
and here we have the original model in rock, formed as the
continent rose during the secular retirement of the ocean, instead
of during the ebbing and flowing of the tides. If a shower of rain
falls on the mud-bank, when left dry, it deepens the already-formed
shallow lines of excavation; and so it is with the rain of
successive centuries on the bank of rock and soil, which we call a
continent.
We rode on after it was dark, till we reached a side ravine with a
small well, called "Agua amarga." The water deserved its name, for
besides being saline it was most offensively putrid and bitter; so
that we could not force ourselves to drink either tea or mat?. I
suppose the distance from the river of Copiap? to this spot was at
least twenty-five or thirty English miles; in the whole space there
was not a single drop of water, the country deserving the name of
desert in the strictest sense.
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