372 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



opportunity of going to cliurch on shore in the forenoon, as 

 Lota is one of the stations of the South American Mis- 

 sion ; but owing to the absence of the Eev. Mr. Gardiner, 

 the resident clergyman, who was then in England, we were 

 disappointed. Between one and two p.m., a party of us 

 landed to take a walk, with the intention of gaining a view 

 of the neighbouring bay and town of Coronel. In passing 

 through some grounds surrounding the house of the pro- 

 prietor of the Lota mines, it was pleasant to recognise a 

 number of our familiar garden favourites at home, such as 

 mignonette, wallflower, stock, candytuft, snapdragon, and 

 others, which we had not seen for nearly two years. The 

 town presented the usual Eoman Catholic Sunday aspect — 

 knots of people, many of them half intoxicated, lounging 

 idly about the streets, while, issuing from the miserable 

 wooden hovels, we heard songs, accompanied by the " tweed- 

 ling " of guitars. As unfortunately the afternoon was very 

 misty, we failed in our object, and after a time made 

 our way down to the beach to the north of Lota, and 

 walked along the rocks, which in certain spots were very 

 remarkable, stretching out from the base of steep sandstone 

 cliffs, so as to form broad, flat plateaux, exhibiting numerous 

 deep fissures and hollows, produced by the action of the 

 surf, which at this time was beating violently outside. A 

 pretty purple starfish, apparently a species of Asterina, was 

 abundant on the flat rock in moist places, and the pools 

 abounded in Actinia, Mollusca, and Crustacea. At one spot 

 a regular hedge, about a foot high, of a stout, branching, 

 shrubby sea-weed,- stretched along for many yards, rising 

 and falling upon the top of the surf 



On the 8th, Captain Mayne and I landed in the morning 

 for the purpose of taking a long ride into the country, but 



