THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 495 



where our guide was anxious to treat us to English beer, we 

 took a stroll by ourselves through the town, which we had 

 not yet seen by daylight, finding that it presented a very 

 picturesque appearance, consisting principally of a single 

 long street, with two fine palm-trees growing at each side of 

 the road at either end. It was a public holiday in con- 

 sequence of some Eoman Catholic festival, and there was 

 much music, vocal and instrumental, proceeding from the 

 different houses. It was curious to observe such a number 

 of unmistakably German physiognomies, and to hear such an 

 amount of German spoken, receiving from many of the 

 people whom we met a " Guten morgen," instead of the 

 customary "bonas dias." We visited an old burial-ground 

 on a height, where a tall black cross was erected, with 

 representations of the pincers, nails, the hammer, the spear, 

 the sponge, and other implements associated with the cruci- 

 fixion, appended to it. At the close of the four o'clock 

 dinner we sauntered out on the coach-road for some miles. 

 We here saw some very large ant-hills, and spent a consider- 

 able amount of time watching the industrious little creatures 

 carrying great burdens of red earth, cemented into pellets, to 

 the entrance of the galleries, where they poised them for a 

 moment, and then let them fall down the steep side of the 

 hill. Farther on, we found an army of large black ants 

 stretching across the road, and forming a belt about nine 

 inches broad, which was visible at a distance of many yards. 

 Darkness settled down long before we returned to the village, 

 but we were lighted on our way by the fireflies, which, as on 

 the previous evening, were flitting about in myriads. 



We were roused in due time on the morning of the 28th, 

 and, after a light breakfast, started at six by the coach for 

 Entre Eios, which we reached at noon, and after breakfasting 



