brethren of England; for the name of Englishman, formerly a term of reproach, is now one of respect, according to Captain Andrews, whose arrival seemed to intoxicate the inhabitants with joy. The loyal opposition were therefore left to mourn, unpitied, the progress of liberal, and sound opinions, under a just and paternal, as well as enlightened government.

Tucuman seems to be a very delightful province, though of moderate extent, being only about forty leagues square-lying between the twenty-fifth and twenty-eighth parallel of south latitude. It has an endless variety of the finest soils, and, consequently, of vegetable produce of the most useful as well as delicious kinds. From these the inhabitants have derived whatever manufacture they are calculated to yield, and accordingly possess wines, spirits, and sugar in perfection. The luxuriant woods are filled with every kind of game; and all the animals most useful to man are produced in unlimited abundance, and of the finest breeds. The indolence of the Spaniards, even in Europe, where they have, in so many parts of their territory, a hard climate and unfavourable soil, became, as might be supposed, far worse in this natural garden; and the monks employed their influence only to encourage habits of ignorance and sloth. The priesthood is now overthrown; and here, as everywhere else, the priests, being the declared opponents of liberty, are regarded as the common enemy, and religion, for a scason, suffers with its only regular teachers. In the city of Tucuman, however, the personal character of some of these ecclesiastics has preserved their possessions; and there was always less of clerical power, and less intolerance, there than elsewhere, in so much that the proposition was entertained of allowing foreigners the open enjoyment of their religious rites, and was only rejected finally by the influence of an old Jesuit, and one or two others.

The mountainous districts of this fine country are rich in mines; these, however, have been abandoned for many years, partly owing to a great earthquake which destroyed the works, partly to the abundance of all other produce, easily obtained without the toils and discomforts of a mountain life. When, however, the rage for such speculations broke out in England, it extended to Tucuman; and parties and subscriptions were speedily formed to explore the mines and re-establish the neglected works; but the cold shivering fit that succeeded at the end of 1825, was sure to be felt there with the same rapidity.

In his excursions through this province, our author is enchanted with the delights of the climate and the woodland scenery, in which the nights of travellers are necessarily passed,

He becomes, indeed, quite romantic, breaking out even into rhyme, which we will not quote; and then goes on as follows, after saying that the luxuries of the London Tavern or the Tuileries are poor to the forest fare:—

After a glorious field fire-side, made for mere pastime in this liberty inspiring region, and in the bosom of nature, we retired, not, reader, to a feather bed, to bury ourselves in the down, but to a deliciously refreshing snore on a rancho floor. They who have been accustomed to the woods, in those parts of the temperate climates that border upon the tropics, well know the fact, that, what with being awoke by the rich piping of birds of every note and tune, inhaling the serene cool air of the most delightful atmosphere on earth, with nature reposing around in stillness of beauty, there is an exhilarating sensation experienced, which language cannot describe. It is as though the soul and body had at the moment reached perfect happiness, and no wish of earth or heaven was left ungratified. It is as if sin and sorrow were only a name, and the soul was pure of transgression. There is no enjoyment on earth can surpass this feeling. Rising thus, it is not extraordinary that the temper should remain affected by it, that everything throughout the beautiful day which follows such a dawn so witnessed, should cheer and gratify; that homely fare, if we have no other, should be eaten with a zest at breakfast, and soul and body be happy. Those who rouse from soft beds, in carpeted rooms, and in varying climes, know little of this most exquisite of earthly sensations.'

But the prodigious timber trees of the new world remain to be marvelled at.

The approach to the coverts of the forest, resembles much the outskirt plantations or game preserves of an English gentleman's domain, except that the trees, shrubs, and plants, are infinitely more varied. There are many, which are trained in our green-houses, and some which we have introduced on our lawns. Our advance, for many a league, was through gradations of trees, the branches of which, ascending higher and higher up the side of the mountains, reached at length the heights where the walnut, lime, and oak grow, and the red cedar begins to spread wide its majestic foliage.

My friend, Don Thomas, now brought me suddenly upon a grove of those stupendous trees, which throw up a clean trunk of a hundred feet, and I am afraid to say how much more, but still many feet beyond that elevation. I could not repress my admiration from Don Thomas any longer, nor keep back the just tribute of my applause. Such vegetative magnificence I never before saw. I gazed until my eyes ached at these forest patriarchs, mossed with age, encircled with creepers, and studded with parasites, like stars, in all parts, trunk and branch. They seemed coeval with old time, and supplied such associations of age, as the castled ruin inspires in Europe, but which would be vainly looked for here. Could these trees, like those of the poets, have spoken, I should have demanded of them, as I felt an almost irre.

sistible desire to do, how long they had stood? whether from creation's dawn? Whatever they might have answered, they must have trembled, had they known my thoughts, and found that their end was well nigh come; for Don Thomas and myself were calculating, that a few years of a company's employment of capital, would make desperate havock among them. Timber, as before remarked, even for Buenos Ayres, is in demand from this spot. Fate willed it otherwise, and these patriarchs are still growing, though their doom was then looked upon as almost certain.'

The province of Salta, whither our traveller proceeded next, resembles Tucuman in extent, climate, fertility, and population. The inhabitants, now that the spirit of national independence and of public liberty have been attended by their natural concomitants, active industry and liberal feeling towards other countries, regard the English as their best friends, whom, before, the priests and the godos (Royalists) had made them consider as natural enemies, and execrate as infidels. But it is lamentable to think what a shock has been given to the rising commerce of these magnificent regions, at the moment most important to its growth. The English speculations, if temperately and judiciously carried on, would have both hastened prodigiously the growth of the American resources, and knit indissolubly the people of both countries in the bonds of mercantile, as well as political union.

The author's course towards Potosi now lay through a very different tract of country; he was to travel among lofty mountains, and suffer the extremes of heat and cold, with the privations of food and comforts incident to such climate and situation. The first part of their progress was over a country of singular formation.

We journeyed along through basins and their connecting straits. Now in a huge bowl of vast circumference, arched over by the cloudless blue heavens which rested upon snow-capped mountain ridges of amazing elevation, circumscribing the eye to an apparently limited view. Towards the latter part of the day, these vast basins assumed a more continuous chain as we ascended. Through the bed of these an impetuous torrent raged towards a narrow outlet, the strait that conducted it into the next basin. Its turbid and angry violence in the deeper parts, while crossing it, occasioned a giddy sensation, by no means pleasant, and not lessened by the reflection, that if swept down into them, salvation was quite problematical. We made this day eight leagues, and bivouacked on a green patch by a torrent side, pretty well fatigued from the sun's heat, which operated with intense power; indeed the more enclosed places were literally ovens.

On the 26th, we continued to ascend gradually through the same singular character of country. Basin followed basin, link after link, still connected by corresponding straits. The sight was overwhelmed with

astonishment at these stupendous excavations. No language is adequate to describe the mighty magnificence of their conformation, nor its effect upon the mind. What must have been the volume of the waters which formed them? for that they were hollowed by such an agency no one can doubt. As they now exist, nothing can be more admirably adapted for receiving and guiding to an outlet the mountain floods. But none of the floods known to have flowed through them, could have scooped their profound depths, or rounded their vast circumferences. Step after step we mounted through them, and marked the projecting slips or tongues at the entrance of each, overlapping one another with mathematical precision, forming a gloomy strait, which being passed, a fresh basin, without a visible passage out, save that by which we entered, still burst upon the sight. We seemed again locked up from the world, in a gulph from which there was no escape; above us the cloudless heaven as before; around the steep concave sides of the hollow, and over its edge above the peaks of the eternal mountains. How and when these were formed, let the geologist tell. They certainly are even now a protection to the lower country from the mountain torrents, by confining their course to a specific channel; but the deepest stream that disembogues itself through them now, is a rill, infinitely diminutive, to the ocean that must have first poured through, and hewn out these gigantic channels and basins. All the snows of the Andes, simultaneously melted, and rolling onwards with a mighty head at once, could scarcely be supposed equal to the forming such enormous excavations. Up to the loftiest summits of the mountains, however, the action of water is visible, as though the sea had broken upon them, or flooded and retired alternately on them, for thousands of ages.'

With the very name of Potosi is connected every image of wealth which the fancy can create; but when seen, it has the aspect only of desolation. Although we have not left ourselves room to make many more extracts, we shall give the author's lively description of his approach to the place.

A considerable descent from Satagambo or Chaquilla, brings the traveller to an inclined plane, in the horizon of which the long expected bill of Potosi rises. By a succession of steps, ascending, you at length reach it; but a feeling of tedium is experienced almost unsupportable, so slowly do you seem to approach its base. On the plain at its foot innumerable Llamas and Alpachas browse, and a part of it is irrigated by a delicious spring; little in quantity, it must be confessed, as the source is not larger than a gallon kettle; but parched as we were, the water was to us perfect

nectar.

From a declivity on the south-east side of the hill the city breaks first upon the view, but with no very inviting aspect, even to a weary-worn traveller, having a sombre, dreary appearance which can scarcely be described. The view of this hold of Hell and Mammon is panoramic; it is without fire and brimstone, perhaps from lack of fuel. The turrets and edifices rise heavily and ominously, while not a bush or streak of green enlivens the neighbourhood of this ugly and crime-stained capital. It looks like the city of a prince of sin,-strange, desert, solitary, mysterious; a place of evil enchantment.'

The city is said to have had a population of 130,000 before the revolution, and to have now less than a twelfth of that number. The mountain is, at the peak, 14,000 feet above the sea; its circumference, at the base, is about nine miles. The riches of this ground were discovered by an Indian, who, in running after some sheep, slipt, and to save himself took hold of a shrub, which, coming away from the ground, laid bare the silver at its root. At one time the mines yielded 30,000 ducats a-day; and for a long period, nine millions of dollars annually. All the mines in South America have been abandoned as soon as the ground springs became troublesome, even if the mine happened to be at its best point of working. The tools of the Indian miners are clumsy and wretchedly contrived; and from want of metallurgical skill, the richest ores have yielded, comparatively speaking, the least metal. But, independent of old works, ill conducted and quitted needlessly, there is said to be at Potosi full three-fourths of virgin ground. Captain Andrews shows how a little blasting, to which the ground is well adapted, would expedite mining operations in this territory.

The following passage is striking and curious.

The mountain of Potosi, when viewed from the city heights, with the hill in its front, called the Younger Potosi, inclosed to the eye within the circumference of the great cone without, is in shape like an extended tent, and if the mind of the observer can separate the sum of moral evil it has inflicted on the world from the bare view, no sterile object in nature can be more truly magnificent. Leaving out of the question its conformation, the numerous metalliferous tints, with which the cone is patched and coloured, green, orange, yellow, gray, and rose colour, according to the hues of the ores which have been scattered from the mouths of the mines, are singular and beautiful in effect.'

The number of the mines is reckoned by some Spaniards at five thousand. This is an exaggeration at first appearance, but it must be understood by the reader that it refers to portions of mines called "Estacas," or individual shares, consisting of so many square “varas,” (yards, or feet,) which each proprietor holds by virtue of what is called" denouncement," as prescribed in the old Spanish code, or " laws of the mines." Whatever may have been the quantity of these Estacas once at work, not more than a hundred were in activity when I was at Potosi, and probably not one half that number until General Miller became the Governor, when affairs began to wear a brighter aspect, and the country to recover a little from its distresses. This was seen to be the case in all the different branches of employ. Previous to the revolution the river before alluded to turned the barbarously constructed machinery of ninety" ingenios," or stamping mills,

* In the year 1577, there were one hundred and thirty-two at work. 2 L

VOL. XLVI. NO. 92.