base_, poured forth wit and hot
water by the hour, diversifying both occasionally, by ravishing strains
on the violin, and chanting Virginia melodies, which acted on the heels
of one of our attendants, in a complicated series of jigs, called the
double shuffle.

At last the fates befriended us; a new moon appeared, and the west wind
having apparently blown itself out of breath, a breeze sprang up from
south-east and commenced blowing the sea and ourselves in an opposite
direction; snow fell thick and fast, driving the thermometer below
freezing point, and barometer running rapidly up. As the flakes fell and
adhered to rigging and sails, the entire mass of ropes, spars and
hampers were soon clothed in icy white jackets. The sun broke out for a
moment and converted a showering cloud of snow into a magnificent bow.
Rainbows of sun and moon are beheld by the million, but seldom a novelty
like a _snow-bow_! The ship was hurried along at great speed on the
sixtieth parallel, until reaching the meridian of eighty, when we bore
away to the northward. Congratulating ourselves with the hope that the
clerk of the weather had forgotten to announce our arrival to the court
of winds in the great South Pacific; faint delusion!--off the gusty isle
of Chiloe, we had a hug from a gale, which, however, exhausted itself in
a few hours, and then left us to flounder about on the mountainous backs
of waves as best we might--then there was an interval of rain and
squalls from all quarters, when the breeze again came fair, and on the
second of December, we anchored at Valparaiso, just five weeks from Rio
Janeiro.

CHAPTER V.

There can be no greater satisfaction to a wind-buffetted rover, than
sailing into a new place, and the consolation of knowing there are still
others behind the curtain. It was thus we felt, and after rounding the
Point of Angels, and casting anchor in the Bay of Paradise, fancied
ourselves quite in altissimo spirits, if not precisely in cielo.

On approaching the Chilian coast, the eye of course seeks the
white-robed Cordilleras, and well worthy the sight they are--forty
leagues inland, cutting the sky in sharp, clear outlines, with peaks of
frosted silver, until the attention is fairly arrested by the stupendous
peak of the Bell of Quillota, and Tupongati, the colossus of all,
tumbling as it were, from the very zenith--then nearer, diminuendoing
down to the ocean, are generations of lesser heights, each, howev