416 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



The period of our stay at Coquimbo having drawn to a 

 close on the 8th of September, Dr. Campbell and I landed for 

 a last ramble over the sandy ground not far from the sea, 

 where we found several beautiful plants which had lately 

 come into flower, including the handsome Leucocoryne ixioides, 

 the elegant little Trichojpetalum stellatum, the inner divisions 

 of the white perianth of which are delicately fringed, so as 

 to resemble three small white feathers, and a beautiful species 

 of Calandrinia, with a mauve-purple flower, drooping when 

 in bud, but erect in fuU bloom. The plains were in some 

 places so thickly covered with the blue convolvulus-like 

 flowers of a ISTolanaceous plant, as to appear like sheets of 

 water. We also found specimens of a curious milky-juiced 

 creeper of the Asclepias order, the Oxypetalum Hookeri. 

 On the afternoon of the same day we weighed, and proceeded 

 southwards on our way to Valparaiso, halting for a few min- 

 utes in Herradura Bay, w^here I got a couple of hauls in the 

 dredge, and procured thereby three Gasteropods which I had 

 not met with previously, the Triton scaler, Chrysodomus 

 alternatus, and Chlorostoma hicarinatum. 



We reached Valparaiso on the 7th, on a damp, misty 

 forenoon, and during the four following days heavy rain fell 

 with but little intermission — a sufiiciently rare phenomenon 

 in these parts, and attributed by the inhabitants to the 

 agency of the recent earthquakes. 



The 18th, or " diez-y-ocho," was a national holiday, being 

 the anniversary of the independence of the republic of Chili. 

 Invitations having been issued to the officers of the various 

 ships lying in the bay to be present at the celebration of 

 Grand Mass in the church of San Augustin, a party of us 

 landed in the morning, and proceeded to the Intendencia, 

 where we were ushered into a large room in which the Inten- 



