588 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, between 71° and 73% but on this day it rose to 82% and did not fall 
again below 80° until after we quitted Acapulco. I notice the circum- 
consequence of Captain Hall having experienced precisely 
the same change in the same situation 
Early in the morning of the 12th March we came within view of 
the Tetas de Coyuca, two peaked hills, which are considered by seamen 
the best guide to the port of Acapulco, and the next morning came to 
anchor in the most perfect harbour of its size that can be imagined. 
The town of Acapulco was now tranquil, two Spaniards only being 
left in the place, and Montesdeoca having retired to Tulincinga, and 
disbanded his troops by order of the congress. The government of 
Acapulco was administered by Don Jose Manuella, a tool of Montes- 
deoca, who received me in his shirt, seated upon a Guyaquil hammock, 
in which he was swinging from side to side of the apartment. 
Having effected our purpose in putting into the port, and taken 
on board a supply of turkeys and fruit, which are finer here than in 
any other part of the world ydth which I am acquainted, we put to sea 
on the l8th. On the 29th of March we crossed the equator in 99° 40' 
W., and arrived at Valparaiso on the 29th of April, where we had the 
gratification to find, that his Eoyal Highness the Lord High Admiral 
had been pleased to mark his approbation of our proceedings on our 
voyage to the northward in 1826, by honouring the Blossom with the 
first commissions for promotion which had been issued under his Eoyal 
Highness’s auspices. Here also I found orders awaiting my arrival to 
convey to Europe the remittances of specie, part of which arrived on 
May. the 19th May, and on the 20th we proceeded to Coquimbo to take on 
board the remainder. 
On the 2Sd, when seven leagues S. W. ^ W. of this port, we were 
surprised by the shock of an earthquake, which shook the ship so 
forcibly, that some of the seamen imagined the anchor had been let go 
by accident, and was dragging the chain-cable with it to the bottom ; 
while others supposed the ship had struck upon a shoal. An hour 
afterwards we felt a second shock, but much lighter. On our arrival 
* Hall’s South America, p. 182, 
