ene.

* * * * *

From Rio Janeiro Madame Pfeiffer sailed in an English ship, the _John
Renwick_, on the 9th of September, for Valparaiso, the great sea-port of
Chili. In sailing southward, the ship touched at Santos, where the
voyagers celebrated New Year's Day, and they made the mouth of the Rio
Plata on the 11th of January. In these latitudes the Southern Cross is
the most conspicuous object in the heavens. It consists of five shining
stars, arranged in two diagonal rows. Towards the end of the month
Madame Pfeiffer gazed upon the sterile cliffs and barren mountains of
Patagonia, and next upon the volcanic rocks, wave-worn and wind-beaten,
of Fire-Land, or Tierra del Fuego. Through the Strait of Le Main, which
separates the latter from Staten Island, the voyagers passed onward to
the extreme southern point of the American Continent, the famous
promontory of Cape Horn. This is the last spur of the mighty
mountain-chain of the Andes, and consists of a mass of huge basaltic
rocks, piled together in huge disorder as by a Titan's hand.

Doubling Cape Horn they encountered a furious gale, which raged for
several days; and soon discovered, like other voyagers, how little the
great southern ocean deserves its name of the Pacific. "Such a storm as
this," says Ida Pfeiffer, "affords much food for reflection. You are
alone upon the boundless ocean, far from all human aid, and feel more
than ever that your life depends upon the Most High alone. The man who,
in such a dread and solemn moment can still believe there is no God,
must indeed be irretrievably struck with mental blindness. During such
convulsions of Nature a feeling of tranquil joy always comes over me. I
very often had myself bound near the binnacle, and allowed the
tremendous waves to break over me, in order to absorb, as it were, as
much of the spectacle before me as possible; on no occasion did I ever
feel alarmed, but always full of confidence and resignation."

Madame Pfeiffer reached Valparaiso on the 2nd of March. She was by no
means pleased with its appearance. It is laid out in two long streets,
at the foot of dreary hills, these hills consisting of a pile of rocks
covered with thin strata of earth and sand. Some of them are crowded
with houses; on one lies the church-yard; the others are sterile and
solitary. The two chief streets are broad and much frequented,
especially by horsemen, for every Chilian is born a horseman, and