302 FIKST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC. 



the Philippines, and hastened to engage a vessel to convey 

 me from the Island of Cuba to Cartagena de Indias. Bau- 

 din's Expedition, however, took quite a different route from 

 that which was announced and expected ; instead of sailing 

 round Cape Horn, as had been designed when it had been 

 intended that Bonpland and myself should form part of it, 

 it sailed round the Cape of Good Hope. One of the two 

 objects of my Peruvian journey and of "our last passage over 

 the Chain of the Andes failed ; but on the other . hand I 

 had, at the critical moment, the rare good fortune of a 

 perfectly clear day, during a very unfavourable season of the 

 year, on the misty coast of Low Peru. I observed the 

 passage of Mercury over the Sun at Callao, an observation 

 which has become of some importance towards the exact 

 determination of the longitude of Lima ( 20 ), and of all the 

 south-western part of the JNlew Continent. Thus in the 

 intricate relations and graver circumstances of life, there 

 may often be found, associated with disappointment, a germ 

 of compensation. 



