232 
VOYAGE TO THE 
We then took our final leave of the coast of Chile and its 
very friendly inhabitants. 
We had partly intended laying-to off Chiloe to ascertain 
the fate of the heroic Quintanilla, whose long and faithful 
maintaining of that island merits every praise that can be 
bestowed on the hero of a forlorn hope*. But the weather 
forbade our doing so, and we therefore proceeded on our 
way round Cape Horn, which we doubled on the 29th of 
December, and proceeded directly for St. Helena. 
On the 8th of January, being in lat. 42° S., we passed 
several icebergs, nearly in the place where La Roche 
thought he saw an island; but we found no soundings 
with 1 SO fathoms of line, and therefore concluded that na¬ 
vigator had been mistaken, or deceived, as we had nearly 
been, by an iceberg. 
On the morning of the 23d of January we made St. 
Helena, the dark monument of the most conspicuous man 
that has arisen within the period of certain history. We 
were hospitably received and entertained by the governor. 
We gazed at the barren rocky circuit, and the smiling valleys 
of the island. We visited Longwood, and the cottage of 
the Bertrands, and the willows that overhang the grave of 
* Chiloe surrendered to the Chilian troops nearly about the same time that 
Rodil was compelled to give up Callao. 
