What I saw on the west coast of South and North America, and at the Hawaiian Islands.: By H. Willis Baxley, M.D.

TALCA.
whole region abounds in it, not a boulder being visible. A great
part of the land along our route of to-day being incapable of
irrigation, is barren, desolation rei,gnis around, and there is nothing of immediate wayside scenery to give interest to the ride.
Travellers were few, a pack-train and herd of cattle with an
occasional horseman scarcely serving to relieve the oppression
of loneliness; and but for the Cordillera, with its unrolled panorama of grandeur and magnificence, bounding the vision to the
east, and Peteroa, Desca,bezado, Nevada de Chillan, andi Piedra
Azul, extending over eighty or ninety miles of space, standing
in bold relief beside their less imposing compeers, piercing the
skies with icy pinnacles, and lifting on high their domes of everlasting snow, pencilled with silvery light, or mellowing in softer
radiance or darker shadow, as jealous clouds concealed thleir
beauties fromi the sun; but for these eternal oracles of God, that
speak conviction to the human mind, calmingl its doubts and
confirming its faith, and thlat awakenl thie sleeping emotions of
the hefart to strange delights there would be no temptation to
repeat the ride from thie Rio Claro to Talca. Having crossed
the unimportant streams of Chagra and Panque, and passed for
a short distance somewiat better cultivated fields near the city
we found ourselves, at six p. M., dashing over paved streets and
skirting the Plaza de Armas, to the fashionable but rather hiumble-looking hotel which faced one of its sides.
T7c(ie is about one hundred miles by thie road southwest by
south from San Fernando, in latitude 35~ 14' S. It was foLunded
in 1742, and is much nearer to thie Coast Iange of mountains
than to the Andes, being but a few miles fironm the ifoot of the
former, riom which it is separated by the Rio Claro in its so-tlherly stretch, to empty into the River Maule'. [Being the capital
of the province of the same name, it has a considerable population, estimated at fifteen thousand; and it is thle point to whiech
the Southern Railroad is tendiing, and, it is supposed, -ill be
riade its southern terminus. The policy would be shiort-sighted
that would arrest that improvemenlt short of the Bay of Concepcion or the Biobio River.
A minute description of Talca would not repay one for the
perusal. Jt may be imagined fr'om whlat has already been said
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