Travels In Chile And La Plata PDF Download

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. MENDOZA TO VILLA VICENCIO. Mendoza and its neighbourhood described.?Climate.?Diseases.? Vineyards and Wines.?Leave Mendoza.?Journey to Villa Vicencio?Disaster there.?Consequences.?Place described? State of the Weather.?Return to Mendoza. We arrived in Mendoza about six o'clock in the evening of the 25th April, 1819, just as it was growing dusk: as the coach was driven up to the door of the inn, the host came out to receive us. He conducted my wife to his private house on the opposite side of the way, while I attended to the discharging of the luggage, and the accommodation of my retinue. The coach was obliged to remain in the street, as the door of the yard was not large enough to admit it: no sooner was the luggage carried in than the custom-house officers, not contented with the examination we experienced in the morning at Retamo, now presented themselves and demanded to look at the contents of our portmanteaus: this odious task they performed in a very rude and annoying manner?they grumbled much at the quantity of linen, and more so when they were told it was only the stock required for the journey, as the great bulk of my equipage had gone round by sea: this was beyond tbeir comprehension, especially as a shirt will serve the best of them upward of amonth without being washed. We were accosted by our former travelling companions, who were lodged in the same inn. The room allotted to us was a miserably dirty place, having no window in it, so that to obtain light it was necessary to open the door, which looked into the court yard. The doctor and my men were lodged in a large room adjoining mine, which was still more filthy and incommodious. The kitchen was a large place, in which there was great bustle of preparation; a kind of counter stood in the middle...