324 JOURNAL. 
The southern winds are now come, and they often bring us such 
clouds of dust that our attempts to write are in vain; and our food 
would be defiled did we not retire to a little bower under the shelter 
of a hill, —where, in a dining-room of Nature’s own making, with its 
door and windows looking to the ocean complete, we eat and re- 
main until the evening calm comes on, when we collect round a large 
fire * that we burn at the front of our tents, and talk till bed time. 
Don Benito is perhaps the best companion for such a time that we could 
have had: he has seen so much of every thing that we have never 
either seen or heard, that his tales are always new ; and for memory, 
the Sultaness Scheherezade herself did not surpass him: so we have 
named his stories the “ Peruvian Nights’ Entertainments ;” and listen 
sometimes to the histories of the college of Quito, which prove that 
professors and students are on the same footing there that professors 
and students are, and have always been, in all times and countries ; 
and love stories, that show that young hearts can feel, and confide, 
* I afterwards learned, that this fire being seen from Valparaiso night after night, oc- 
casioned the report that a volcano had burst out at Quintero. 
