2^0 JOURNAL. 



newly discovered South Shetland *, and of the wreck of the Spanish 

 line-of-battle ship which had been found there, — a ship which had 

 been bound to Chile with troops, but had never been heard of. The 

 boy was listening eagerly, and then looked at me, — " Mirad la For- 

 tuna de Chile," said he ; " when the tyrants send ships to oppress her, 

 God sends them to wreck on desert coasts." I trust, the stuff he is 

 made of will not be spoiled by the constant intercourse he has with 

 the French who frequent his father's house ; Don Felipe de Solar 

 being general agent for all French vessels arriving in Chile. This 

 is, I believe, an illiberal feeling, but I cannot help it ; there are some 

 things, which, like faith, do not depend upon the will, and this is 

 one of them. Perhaps I envied the French authors their place on 

 Madame Solar's table, and would have liked to have seen the Rape 

 of the Lock there, rather than the Lutrin. 



In the evening we rode to the quinta of the Canonico Erreda by 

 the Almeida, and so to the north-east. The house is spacious and 

 pleasant ; the garden delicious : little water-courses, led in quaintly- 

 figured canals among the flower-beds, maintain a never failing suc- 

 cession of all the sweetest and rarest flowers, — the violet and wall- 

 flower, the carnation and ranunculus ; and there are delicious oranges, 

 of which we ate no small number ; and limes, and a large peach- 

 orchard, and a vineyard, and cows, and a dairy, and all manner of 

 rural wealth and comfort. 



From the Canonico's we rode by the olive grove with the thickest 

 shade of olive trees on one hand, and on the other long orchards 

 of cherry, peach, apple, and pear, all now in blossom ; and crossing- 

 two or three enclosures at each gate of which we were sure to meet 

 some one to open it, and as surely some one to beg, — a practice 

 nobody seems ashamed of here, — we reached the Canada, formerly 

 only a marshy suburb of the town ; but O'Higgins is causing it to 

 be drained, and cleared, and planted with trees, so that it will soon 

 exceed the Almeida in beauty, as it does in extent. The water, 



* New South Shetland should rather be called a re-discovery : Raleigh was there, and 

 hanged some mutineers on the coast. 



