VALPARAISO. |81 



try seat, having leave of absence for four months ; and in the next, 

 the ships of the Chileno squadron are in no state to go to sea ; and 

 as the officers and seamen have not been paid, it is scarcely possible 

 for the government to think of employing them. 



22d. — The wet weather continues, though with hours of sunshine 

 occasionally. I have been delighted with reading the first new books 

 I have seen in Chile ; Lord Byron's Foscari, Cain, and Sardana- 

 palus. He cannot write without stirring our feelings. Foscari has 

 in it passages that, though they perhaps owe some of their magic to 

 my actual situation so far from home, surely must touch every heart. 

 But who that has never left their sweet home except on an expedi- 

 tion of pleasure, can feel like me this passage — 



" You never 

 Saw day go down upon your native spires 

 So calmly, with its gold and crimson glory; 

 And, after dreaming a disturbed vision 

 Of them and theirs — awoke and found them not !" 



The reading of these dramas has afforded me great enjoyment — 

 and 'tis the first for many a day. 



July 24:th. — I went to the port to dine with my friends, the 



H s, and while there received the account of the first meeting of 



the constituent assembly, yesterday, which appears to me to have, in 

 one instance at least, taken on itself the duties of a legislative as- 

 sembly ; perhaps it is difficult to separate the two : there were 

 twenty-three members present, and seven absent. The Director went 

 in state to the chambers of the convention, and his arrival was an- 

 nounced by a salvo of artillery, without which nothing is done here. 

 He opened the session with a short speech, adverting to the mistakes 

 and untimely dissolution of the convention of 1810, and anticipating 

 a happier result from this. The members then proceeded to the 

 election of a president and vice-president ; when, amid cries of 

 " Viva la patria !" " Viva la convencion !" the Director presented a 

 memorial, which he entreated might be speedily read, and retired. 

 The paper contains a congratulatory address to the convention ; a 

 rapid sketch of the Director's political life ; advice as to the measures 



