ther her owner
willed. Thus the perilous voyage had been postponed for a few years.

Manuela Estacardo had returned to her home in tropical America, and
she and her dearest friend, Warrenia Rowland, were never laggard in
their correspondence. The South American insisted that Warrenia should
make her long-promised visit, and the daughter of the North was eager
to do so. The journey, however, was so long and difficult that no
practicable way presented itself until in a twinkling, as may be said,
the path was cleared by the decision of Major Starland to double Cape
Horn with his yacht.

What was to prevent his taking Warrenia as a passenger, ascend the
Amazon to the home of Manuela and pay that cherished visit? The plan
was so simple that every one to whom it was mentioned wondered why it
was not thought of before. Aunt Cynthia would accompany her niece as
chaperon, and the pause would cause little delay in the voyage. What
matter if it did, for time was of no special consequence, and a few
weeks, one way or the other, were not worth taking into account.

When Mr. Rowland proposed to his partner that a condition of the gift
of the yacht to his son ought to be the severe test of a voyage under
the latter's direction around Cape Horn, he never imagined that his
daughter was to share the danger. But he could not ask that the young
man of whom he was so fond should be compelled to face a peril of that
nature in which he would refuse his daughter a share. It cost him a
pang to yield, but he did so without murmur, and fondly kissed her
good bye, with never a thought of the remarkable experience she would
be called upon to pass through.

As for good Aunt Cynthia, she was wholly ignorant of what in the most
favorable circumstances was inevitable. The smothering temperature,
the plague of insect life and the actual dangers from the character of
the natives themselves, were wholly unknown and unsuspected by her.
Had she understood one-half the truth, not even her love for her niece
would have impelled her to leave her comfortable home, nor would she
ever have given her consent that Warrenia should engage in any such
wild, foolhardy undertaking. But Aunt Cynthia's education had been of
the early fashionable kind, which furnished only the smallest modicum
of knowledge. You may be sure that the younger ones, who knew a good
deal more about the country and the people, took care not to enlighten
her when they answered her numerous in