PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
589 
in Coquimbo we found that these shocks had been felt by the inha- 
bitants, and that there had been one the preceding night, which made 
the churches totter until the bells rang. Several slight shocks were June, 
afterwards felt by the inhabitants, who are very sensible to these sub- 
terraneous convulsions. 
We remained several days in this port, which enjoys one of the 
most delightful climates imaginable, where gales of wind are scarcely 
ever felt, and in which rain is a very rare occurrence. Situated between 
the ports of Valparaiso and of Callao, where the dews alone irrigate 
the ground, it seems to partake of the advantages of the climates 
of each, without the inconveniences of the rainy season of the one, or 
of the heat and enervating qualities of the other. 
On the 3d June all the specie was embarked, and we put to sea 
on our way to Brazil ; passed the meridian of Cape Horn on the .:>Oth, 
in very thick snow-showers, and after much bad weather arrived at Rio 
Janeiro on the 21st July. Here we received on board the Right Hon. 
Robert Gordon, ambassador to the court of Brazil, and after a passage of 
forty-nine days arrived at Spithead, and on the 12th October paid the 
ship off at Woolwich. 
In this voyage, which occupied three years and a half, we sailed 
seventy-three thousand miles, and experienced every vicissitude of cli- 
mate. It cannot be supposed that a service of such duration, and of 
such an arduous nature, has been performed without the loss of lives, 
particularly as our ship’s company was, from the commencement, far 
from robust ; and I have to lament the loss of eight by sickness, of 
four by shipwreck, of one missing, of one drowned in a lake, and of one 
by falling overboard in a gale of wind; in all fifteen persons. Jo indi- 
viduals nothing probably can compensate for these losses ; but to the 
community, considering the uncertainty of life under the most ordinary 
circumstances, the mortality which has attended the present under- 
taking will, I hope, be considered compensated by the services which 
have been performed by the expedition. 
