450 FROM LIMA TO VALPARAISO. 



the cloud bank and lit up any portion of the hills, as the ship drew southward we could per- 

 ceive the increase of vegetation, and that there was a greater irregularity of landscape outline 

 than on the northern coasts. 



The coasting voyage being now so nearly concluded, it may be remarked that the map 

 compiled by Arrowsmith,* principally from information given him by a former British Consul 

 General, can scarcely be considered a moderately good guide for the west coast. One town 

 is a whole degree of latitude out of place ; the positions of two others are reversed ; some rivers 

 are laid down which certainly have had no existence in modern times, and others look quite 

 imposing that are mere streamlets, which the sands absorb before they reach the ocean. But this 

 must not be wondered at. The most wealthy and best informed persons of the country have 

 little correct geographical information of their own provinces. All the published text in Chile 

 relating to it is embraced in twenty-five small octavo pages, and these abound with inaccu- 

 racies. No wonder, then, that no two of those from whom I inquired on board agreed in the 

 distance or elevation of the Andes, as seen from Santiago. 



October 25. Morning dawned on us dark, damp, and cold. Though only three or four miles 

 distant, the land was too indistinct to permit a proper appreciation of its characteristics. With- 

 out much change of weather for the better during the day, anchor was dropped in the bay of 

 Valparaiso towards 5 o'clock, just seventy days having elapsed since I left New York. It was 

 feared that the ship Louis Philippe, which had sailed from Baltimore on the 12th of July, would 

 arrive before me, and the assistants and equipment embarked on board of her be greatly 

 inconvenienced by my detention ; but a glance at the multitude of anchored vessels assured me 

 she was not among them, and the consignees thought it might be a week or more before she 

 would come in. Delivering to the Intendente the despatches sent by the Chilean minister at 

 Washington for his government, and speedily arranging with the United States consul for 

 landing and storing the instruments in case of arrival during my absence, in less than four 

 hours after the New Grenada anchored I was seated in a birlocho, on the summit of the hills 

 back of Valparaiso, on my way to the capital. 



* La Plata, the Fanda Oriental, and Chile. London, February 15, 1834. 



