292 Voyage of the Novara. 



interior, and is intended to form the communication between 

 it and Santiago de Chile, 110 miles distant, but of which at 

 present only the first 40 miles have been completed. 



A special train, its locomotive neatly decorated with gar- 

 lands of flowers and banneroles, conveyed the guests, 150 in 

 number, to Quilpue. From this station the joyous party 

 marched with the German flagr at the head to one of the 



o 



neighbom'ing dells, which seemed intended by nature to 

 serve as the site of pic-nics in the open aii\ Here, under a 

 number of spacious and elegant tents, we found long tables 

 set out, which a cloud of waiters and cooks seemed engaged 

 in loading with every delicacy that could tempt the j)alate. 



The comj^any wandered through the adjoining glades, or 

 lay stretched out in the shade, in a delicious ecstasy of music 

 and song. The alarm of war, which at the moment was 

 booming through Europe, had found its way even to the foot 

 of the Chilean Andes, and imparted to the festival a political 

 feeling. Although the then state of political matters in Aus- 

 tria was by no means such as to fill the mind with enthusiasm 

 for it, yet all the feelings of the German of Valparaiso were 

 enlisted on the side of Austria in her struggle with France ; 

 less out of sympathy with her policy as then displayed than 

 out of hatred of Napoleonic assumption. 



Thus, in some of the after-dinner speeches which followed 

 in due course, as well as in the inspiring songs with which 

 the entertainment was enlivened, there was free expression 

 given to this sentiment. A Bavarian physician and pharma- 



