ARRIVAL AT SAXDV POINT. 249 



but I consoled myself with a belief that, if it came 

 to the worst, the letter which I carried to the governor 

 from the minister for foreign affairs at Santiago would 

 help me through any preliminary difficulties. On 

 reaching the shore, my luggage was without further 

 question carried to a house close by, which is at this 

 place the sole representative of a hotel. The accom- 

 modation available for strangers consists of a single 

 room of fair dimensions, and this, as I soon learned, 

 was occupied by a stranger. A glance at the 

 multitudinous objects scattered about made me feel 

 sure that the visitor must be a brother naturalist, but 

 did not help me to solve the immediate difficulty. 

 As I stood at the entrance, a dark-haired person, 

 speaking pretty good English, proposed to take me 

 to the house of the English vice-consul, and in his 

 company I had the first view of the settlement of 

 Sandy Point. As the ground rises very gently from 

 the beach, few houses are seen from the sea, and the 

 place is not so inconsiderable as it at first appears. 

 Though rather to be counted as a village than as a 

 town, it has the essential privilege of a Spanish city 

 in the possession of a plaza, not yet quite surrounded 

 by houses. The buildings are small, and nearly all 

 built of wood painted outside. 



The next piece of information received was un- 

 favourable to my prospects. An Argentine corvette 

 had reached Sandy Point a few days before, and the 

 vice-consul had been invited, along with the governor 

 and other notabilities, to a luncheon, which was likely 

 to last for some time. I was fortunately provided 

 with a note of introduction to Dr. Fenton, the 



