BOUND CAPE HORN. 175 



almost Scriptural mills of two stones each. From the coarse flour obtained, the poor people 

 make a drink called nlpa. In the better class of houses he was offered Paraguay tea, or 

 mattee, an infusion of a South American herb. The natives drink it almost boiling hot. 

 It is drawn up into the mouth through a silver pipe : however numerous the company, all 

 use the same tube, and to decline on this account is thought the height of rudeness. The 

 people of Chili, generally, are polite to a degree; and Jack ashore will have no cause to 

 complain, provided he is as polished as are they. He generally contrives, however, to make 

 himself popular, while his little escapades of wildness are looked upon in the light of long 

 pent-up nature bursting forth. 



CHAPTER XI. 



ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN -OF -WAR (continued}. 



FROM THE HORN TO HALIFAX. 



The dreaded Horn The Land of Fire Basil Hall's Phenomenon A Missing Volcano The South American Station- 

 Falkland Islands A Free Port and Naval Station Penguins, Peat, and Kelp Sea Trees The West India Station- 

 Trinidad Columbus's First View of it Fatal Gold Charles Kingsley's Enthusiasm The Port of Spain A Happy- 

 go-lucky People Negro Life Letters from a Cottage Ornee Tropical Vegetation Animal Life Jamaica Kingston 

 Harbour Sugar Cultivation The Queen of the Antilles Its Paseo Beauty of the Archipelago A Dutch Settlement 

 in the Heart of a Volcano Among the Islands The Souffriere Historical Reminiscences Bermuda Colony, Fortress, 

 and Prison Home of Ariel and Caliban The Whitest Place in the World Bermuda Convicts New York Harbour 

 The City First Impressions Its fine Position Splendid Harbour Forest of Masts The Ferry-boats, Hotels, and 

 Bars Offenbach's Impressions Broadway, Fulton Market, and Central Park New York in Winter Frozen Ships 

 The great Brooklyn Bridge Halifax and its Beauties Importance of the Station Bedford Basin The Early 

 Settlers The Blue Noses Adieu to America. 



AND now the exigencies of the service require us to tear ourselves away from gay and 

 pleasant Valparaiso, and voyage in spirit round the Horn to the South-East American 

 Station, which includes the whole coast, from Terra del Fuego to Brazil and Guiana. 

 Friendly ports, Rio and Montevideo, are open to the Royal Navy as stations for 

 necessary repairs or supplies; but the only strictly British port on the whole station is 

 that at the dreary Falkland Islands, to be shortly described. 



Every schoolboy knows that Cape Horn is even more dreaded than the other "Cape 

 of Storms/' otherwise known as " The Cape/' par excellence. In these days, the introduction 

 of steam has reduced much of the danger and horrors of the passage round, though on 

 occasions they are sufficiently serious. In fact, now that there is a regular tug-boat service 

 m the Straits of Magellan, there is really no occasion to go round it at all. In 1862 the 

 writer rounded it, in a steamer of good power, when the water was as still as a mill-pond, 

 and the Horn itself a barren, black, craggy, precipitous rock, towering above the utter 

 desolation and bleakest solitudes of that forsaken spot was plainly in sight. 



Captain Basil Hall, and his officers and crew, in 1820, when rounding Cape Horn 

 observed a remarkable phenomenon, which may account for the title of the " Land of Fire " 

 bestowed upon it by Magellan. A brilliant light suddenly appeared in the north- western 



