While we gave chase to many kinds of birds and insects for the improvement of our collection, the sailors threw out a great net, and took a quantity of shell and other fish with which the sea abounds in this neighbourhood, and which make the chief subsistence of the poorer classes of people. The environs of this village are considered the loveliest district round the bay, and infinitely surpassing Talcaguana in the beauty of its scenery. Few remains of the old town are visible. The earth seems to have actually opened and swallowed it up, leaving scarcely a trace behind. Even the yawning gulph in which it sunk has filled again, so that it is only here and there upon the plain that some fragment of a former dwelling reminds one of the fearful catastrophe. The inhabitants of Talcaguana and Conception make excursions to Pencu, to examine, as a curiosity, a water-mill established there by some foreigner. We found it so out of repair as to be unserviceable, and the owner complained that he could find no one capable of mending it. The wheat is here ground to flour by beating it in stone pots with heavy wooden clubs; which may serve to give some idea of the progress the Chilians have made in the useful arts. Mendiburu possessed an estate near Pencu, where we partook of a pleasant meal under the shade of fruit-trees. After dinner the whole company went shooting, and in the course of a few hours had killed several hundred water-birds of various kinds. The flocks in which they fly are sometimes so numerous as to darken the air. During our absence such a one was descried from the ship; it appeared a solid mass of about ten fathoms broad, and its flight lasted full three hours. The repairs of our ship had gone on quickly, and the time approached for our leaving Chili, when we perceived that the friendliness and civility we had hitherto experienced from the inhabitants was changing into reserve and evident distrust. Secret cabals were going on against us; and even the Government seemed inclined to act, if not with positive hostility, at least violently and arbitrarily towards us. The attention of the unreflecting and easily excited Chilians had first been attracted by the mustachios worn by one of my companions. They took him for a disguised Spaniard, who had accompanied us to sow discontents, and gain back the hearts of the people to the old government. Other misrepresentations may also have been made against us; but we were neither able to discover them, nor the actual intentions entertained towards us.