Half-way between Coronel and Concepcion, we met the return stage-coach, crowded with passengers, and looking as if it had just come out of the South Kensington Museum or Madame Tussaud's, or like the pictures of a coach of Queen Elizabeth's time. It was a long low vehicle, with unglazed windows all round it, painted bright scarlet decorated with brilliant devices on every panel, and suspended, like our own, by means of innumerable leather straps, from huge C springs. The seats on either side held three passengers, and there was a stool in the middle, like the one in the Lord Mayor's coach, on which four people sat, back to bask.
Soon after we drew up to rest the horses at a little posada, kept by two Germans, called 'Half-way House,' and seven miles more brought us to a rich and well-cultivated farm belonging to Mr. Hermann, where we stopped to change horses.
It was six o'clock in the evening when we reached the Bio-Bio, a wide shallow river, at the entrance of the town of Concepcion; it had to be crossed in a ferry-boat, carriage and all, and as it was after hours, we had some difficulty in finding any one to take us over. At last, in consideration of a little extra pay, six men consented to undertake the job, and having set a square-sail, to keep us from being carried down the river by the current, they punted us over with long poles. Sometimes there was nine feet of water beneath us, but oftener not more than four or five. The boat could not get close to the opposite shore, and it was a great business to get the carriage out and the horses harnessed, in some eighteen inches of water. First the carriage stuck in the sand, and then the horses refused to move, but after a great deal of splashing, and an immense display of energy in the way of pulling, jerking, shrieking, shouting--and, I am afraid, swearing--we reached the bank, emerged from the water, struggled through some boggy ground, and were taken at full gallop through the streets of the town, until we reached the Hotel Comercio, where we found comfortable rooms and a nice little dinner awaiting us.
This was all very well, as far as it went, but when we came to inquire about our onward route we were disappointed to learn that the line to Angol was closed, owing to the breaking down of a bridge, and would remain so until next month, and that, with the exception of a contractor's train, which runs only once a week, there was nothing by which we could travel. 'To-morrow is Friday,' added Monsieur Letellier, 'and that is so near Monday, what can Madame do better than wait here till then?' By way of consolation, he informed us that there were no Indians now at Angol, as the Araucanian [6] Indians had recently all been driven further back from the frontier by the Chilenos, but that, if we were still bent on trying to get there, we could go by boat as far as Nacimiento, where we might, with some difficulty, procure a carriage. The river just now, however, is so low, that the boat frequently gets aground, and remains for two or three days; therefore, taking everything into consideration, we have decided to abandon this part of our programme, for otherwise we shall not reach Santiago in time. In any case, the journey will be a much longer one than we expected.