Not at all. Oblige me by looking at your map.
And now let us sail along in the jolly old frigate.
We leave, then, the mouth of the mighty Orinoco, and instead of steering south it is pretty nearly all easting until we reach Trinidad, the most southerly of all the West India islands, then our course is about south-east and by east till we cross the burning equator and round Cape St. Roque, then about south till we look in at Rio Janeiro.
Rio Janeiro stands next to Edinburgh as the most romantic in situation and surroundings in the world. The city itself perhaps looks best at a distance—well, Scot though I be, I must confess that there are some parts of Old Edinburgh itself that at best will hardly bear close inspection. Rio simply means a river, and Rio Janeiro is the city of romance.
We take a course now with a bit of westerly in it, and in time reach another Rio—the Rio de la Plata. Yonder on our starboard beam lies the great and painfully-neglected Argentine Republic.
Coasting still to the south we skirt the shores of Patagonia.
Somehow we associate everything big and large with this long stretch of wild country. Land of giants, land of the llama and swiftly-bounding guanaco. Land of the lasso, too, and stalwart men on fleet horses that can use it. Not a bad lot of fellows at all, if you take them the right way.
But here we are at the entrance to the Straits of Magellan. No, we are not going through this voyage. We pass between the coast and the lonely Falkland Islands. These islands of the far south are somewhat akin in climate to our Orkneys, healthy and bracing, though the country is subject to terrible storms. It has hills and dells and glens, with many a dark tarn and rippling stream, crowded with fish that are by no means shy. The islands number about eighty in all. The summer is very pleasant. If you and I go there to spend a few months, reader, we'll have excellent sport, and no letters or morning papers to worry over. The Falklands are almost treeless, but that does not signify much so long as one is happy and can eat a good breakfast.
Well, here is Staten Island. Rather different is this Argentine isle from the Staten of New York.
Ugh! how bitterly the north-western winds are howling around its rocks. And see, yonder—summer though it be—its dark gloomy cliffs, home of the penguin and many a strange bird besides, are capped with snow; so, too, are its mountains.