9 2 Cruise of the "Alert." 



Immediately adjoining are the splendid buildings in which the 

 sittings of congress are held. 



The morning of our return was cold and frosty, and the plain 

 of Santiago was enveloped in a dense mist, from which we did 

 not emerge until the train had entered the mountain valleys, 

 through which it wound towards the heights of Montenegfo. Here 

 we rose above the gloomy mists, and were gladdened by the 

 bright and warm rays of a sun whose beams were as yet screened 

 from the lowlands. Wild ducks were to be seen in the marshes 

 near the railways, scarcely disturbed by the passage of the train ; 

 flocks of doves rose from the bushes here and there ; owls hovered 

 about in a scared sort of way, as if ashamed of being seen out in 

 the honest sunlight ; and on many a tree top was perched a 

 solitary buzzard or vulture. Later in the forenoon small flocks of 

 the military starlings were frequently sighted, their brilliant scarlet 

 plumage showing to great advantage against the pale green bushes 

 of the hill sides. After passing the summit level we rattled down 

 the incline towards Llallai, at what seemed to me to be a very 

 high speed. I kept looking out of the window at first, watching 

 the engine disappearing from sight as it suddenly swept round an 

 abrupt curve and entered a cutting, and admiring the wriggling 

 of the train as it swiftly threaded its way in and out among the 

 hills. Sometimes our route would seem to lead us into a cul-de- 

 sac of the hills, and when apparently almost at the end of it, the 

 engine would abruptly alter her course and sweep away in a 

 direction nearly at right angles to its former course, dragging the 

 docile and flexible chain of carriages away with it. I had missed 

 all this on the upward journey I suppose because our slower 

 speed then made curves and cuttings look less alarming. After 

 a while, I began to reflect on the probable consequences of our 

 suddenly coming upon a flock of heavy cattle in one of these 

 nasty cuttings, and the more I pondered the more I became 

 convinced that although the cow-catcher of our engine was well 

 able to cope with a single bullock or even two, yet that in the 



