543 



CHAPTER XXI. 



CHILE. MAGELLAN'S STEAITS. FALKLAND ISLANDS. 



ASCENSION. 



Valparaiso. The Andes not Conspicuous. Cattle lassoed in the Streets. 

 Excursion up the Uspallata Pass. Leafless Mistletoe on the Leafless 

 Cactus. An Equestrian Hair Cutter. Dead and Disabled Animals on 

 the Pass. Use of the Lasso in Bobbery and Flirtation. Cleverness of 

 a Horse on a Mountain Path. Fjords of the Western Coast of 

 Patagonia. Density of the Forest. An Anchor Broken. Fuegians. 

 Wild Geese at Elizabeth Island. Kitchen Middens. The Falkland 

 Islands. Visit to Port Darwin. Scotchmen turned Gauchos. Chapinas 

 and Tropijes. Wild Horses and their Habits. Various Modes of 

 Handling Cattle in Different Parts of the World. Goose-Bolas made of 

 Knuckle- Bones. Flies and Gnats with Budinientary Wings. Skeleton 

 of Ziphioid Whale. Fuegian Arrow-heads Scattered in the Islands. 

 Habits of Jackass Penguin. Ascension Island. Land Crabs. The 

 Hatching of Turtles' Eggs. Shooting at Flying Fish. Birds at 

 Boatswain Bird Island. 



Valparaiso, Chile. November 19th to December 11th, 1815. — 



How Valparaiso came to be called the Vale of Paradise I cannot 

 well understand ; the voyagers who so named it, must have come 

 from a desert land indeed. The surrounding country has a most 

 barren and inhospitable appearance, the red decomposed granite 

 soil showing bare everywhere, and being only here and there 

 sprinkled over with scanty bushes. Not a tree is to be seen 

 anywhere from the anchorage in the harbour though a wide 

 view is thence obtained of the coast of the Bay. 



I had expected the far-famed Andes to show out as a splendid 

 range in the background; but these mountains, though they 

 look close to the coast on the map, he so far inland that one 

 has to search for them in the view from the Bay in order to see 

 them at all. Even then they are only to be discerned on a clear 

 day, and when seen they look small and not at all imposing. 

 The residents on the hill-slopes know where the higher peaks 



