172 JOURNAL. 
July 2d. — To-day, as I was standing on the hill behind my house 
admiring the beautiful landscape before me, and the shadows over the 
sea as the clouds rolled swiftly along, and sometimes concealed and 
sometimes displayed the cliffs of Valparaiso, the scene was rendered 
more grand by the firing a salute from the Aurora, the smoke from 
which, after creeping in fleecy whiteness along the water, gradually 
dilated into volumes of grey cloud, and mixed with the vapours that 
lay on the bosoms of the hills. This salute was in honour of Lord 
Cochrane, who had gone on board that frigate on his return from 
Santiago. His Lordship rode down to my house in the evening to 
tea. He tells me he has leave of absence for four months, with the 
schooner Montezuma at his disposal, and that he means to go to visit 
the estate in Conception decreed to him by the government long 
ago; but from which he has, as yet, derived no advantage, although 
it is one of the most fertile of that fertile province. The truth is, it 
is so near the Indians’ frontier, and so exposed to their depredations, 
that it has lain for some years unoccupied, and the produce has been 
only in part gathered in. The bringing such an estate again into 
cultivation would be a public much more than a private benefit. The 
very example of so courageous an undertaking would do much ; and, 
in a short time, it might be hoped that that delightful land, which has 
suffered more than any of the other provinces, will once more be 
what it was when Villa Rica was its capital, and when the author of 
Robinson Crusoe, collecting the narratives of the English adventurers 
of his day concerning the southern part. of Chile, described this pro- 
vince as the terrestrial paradise, and the inhabitants as beings worthy 
to possess it. * 
July 7th. — Yesterday morning I rode early to the port, on Lord 
Cochrane’s invitation, to join a party which was to sail with him in 
the steam-vessel, the Rising-star, to his estate of Quintero, which lies 
due north from this place about twenty miles, though the road by 
land, being round the bay of Concon, is thirty. 
* See De Foe’s New Voyage round the World. 
