350 JOURNAL. 
ship, and so escaping to some foreign land. The whaler left her 
boats, and brought news of the state of the island to Valparaiso. * 
This insurrection of Brandt’s determined the government of Chile 
to abandon the settlement. The garrison was consequently with- 
drawn, the fort dismantled, and the place rendered as far as possible 
unfit for future inhabitants. N evertheless, early this year the 
government of Chile published a manifesto, setting forth its claim to 
the place, and forbidding any persons whatsover to settle there, or to 
kill the cattle, or take the wood of the island. After walking about 
a long time among the ruined cottages and gardens, I returned to the 
place where I left my companions, and found that the young men 
had pitched on a most charming spot for a dining room. Under 
the shade of two enormous fig-trees there is a little circular space 
bounded by a clear rivulet, which in its rapid descent bounds from 
stone to stone, and mixes its murmurs with those of the breeze and 
the distant ocean. Here I found Lord Cochrane and the rest seated 
round a table-cloth of broad fig-leaves covered with such provision 
as the ship afforded, eked out with fruit of the island hardly yet ripe. 
Our claret was cooled in a little linny in the stream, and the deco- 
rations of our bower were the rich foliage and fruit of the overhang- 
ing trees, and the flowers of the opposite bank, on which stands the 
castle, reflected in the broken silver of the water that gurgled past. 
After dinner I walked with Lord Cochrane to the valley called 
Lord Anson’s Park. On our way we found numbers of European 
shrubs and herbs, 
“* Where once. the garden smiled, 
And still where many a garden flower grows wild.” 
And in the half-ruined hedges, which denote the boundaries of former 
fields, we found apple, pear, and quince trees, with cherries almost 
ripe. The ascent is steep and rapid from the beach even in the valleys, 
and the long grass was dry and slippery, so that it rendered the walk 
* In consequence of this the British Commodore sent notices to the ports of Brazil and 
the Spanish Colonies, to prevent English merchantmen from touching at Juan Fernandez, 
lest the exiles should seize them and so escape. 
