340 Voyage of the Novara. 



coup d'etat of the second December, who, tlie reader will 

 recollect, received permission to make the voyage from 

 Tahiti to Valparaiso on board the Novara^ was among our 

 passengers ; he left tlie steamer at Coquimbo, intending to 

 go to the adjoining mining town of Serena (20,000 souls), 

 where, through the kindness of friends, he had been invited 

 to edit a political paper. 



Here I went on board the British corvette Amethyst, which 

 just a year before had been lying alongside of the Novara in 

 Singapore harbour, and was received by her excellent com- 

 mander with a most cordial welcome. To my astonishment 

 I found a number of civilians on board : refugees, who had 

 taken an active part in the late insurrection, and who now, 

 when all liope of success was over, sought an asylum on 

 British soil, for such is the deck of an English man-of-war, 

 and, thanks to British political proclivities, had been cordially 

 received there. 



About 11 p. M. the same night we were off the insignificant 

 little harbour of Huasco, and about nine next morning ran 

 into Caldera, a dreary-looking little place of some 2000 in- 

 habitants, built upon one of a succession of sand-sloj^es. 

 There is not a trace of vegetation ; no foliage, no shrubs, no 

 patches of grass, — all around as far as the eye could reach 

 was a cheerless waste of sand. Only extraordinary oppor- 

 tunities for money-making could have induced the inhabitants 

 to settle in this desolate wilderness, deficient in the very 

 first necessity of life — fresh water. Every drop of this most 



