The evening was singularly beautiful; so much so that even Pedro could not be insensible to its lovely calm, and to the wonderful rocky scenery that overhangs the Valley of Paradise, as he rambled listlessly along the harbour towards the fort, on which the flag of the Chilian Republic was waving.
The stupendous hills that overlook the city were steeped in golden light, which streamed into the ravines that yawned beneath them; and each of these ravines seemed to be piled up on both sides with white-walled houses—for every chasm formed as it were a street, that branched upward from the low-lying suburb, named the Almendral.
The spires, the bay with its shipping, the cannon on the batteries, were all burnished with the yellow sheen, and over all, towering blue and dim in the distance, rose the cone of Aconcagua, sending a cloud of sombre smoke on the south wind, far away towards the woody and snowy Andes, whose summits rise above the limits of eternal frost—for the burning mountain we have named is 23,000 feet above the level of the sea at Valparaiso; and there are thirteen similar peaks in Chili, all nearly in a constant state of eruption, flame, smoke, and lava.
The lattices of a thousand villas that nestled on the sloping hills were gleaming in the light of the setting sun, as he sunk into the waters of the Pacific, casting the shadows of their walls and terraced roofs on gardens, where the gorgeous, but scentless, flowers of the tropics were closing their petals, and where the deep green leaves of the guava contrasted with the purple tints of the olive, the golden bulbs of the orange, and the giant quinces of Chili, that were ripening in his warmth—the glow of a summer that never ceases.
Pedro surveyed all this with a half-listless, half-pleased eye; and he watched the groups of idlers, in their picturesque dresses of gaudy colours, who thronged the harbour mole and evening promenade. There were the graceful Spanish whites, particularly the donzellas, with their sparkling eyes and piquante smiles, their black lace mantillas, short crinolines, and taper ankles; the slenderly-formed and olive-skinned mestizoes, and the half-naked, supple, and grinning mulattoes, who sung so gaily as they worked in gangs at cranes or capstan-bars.
Several padres were among the promenaders, chiefly Grey Friars, in greasy frocks and hoods, with beads and cord complete; and Chilian soldiers were not wanting, in tawdry uniforms, with plenty of braid without, and plenty of fleas within.
Two priests passed him—they were tall, thin, and sallow men—for whom all made way, for they were the famous preachers from Santiago, the Padres Ugarte and Eizagiuerro; and when Pedro lifted his sombrero, a pang shot through his heart as he thought of Zuares, and their boyish days, when they carried tapers, or swung the censer before the old Bishop of Orizaba—of what they were, and what they might have been.
"Caramba!" he muttered, "why should I think of such things?"
The harbour was full of shipping from Lima and Peru, taking in Cordovan leather in brown bales, cordage in vast coils, and dried fruit in boxes of all sizes. The waves curled in golden prisms over the great rock that lies near the shore, and the yellow-billed and speckled seamews that always cluster there fled screaming towards the offing, as the flag was hauled down and the evening gun boomed across the water from the fort which the Spaniards built of old as a defence against the Indians.
The evening was calm and mild, and the hum of the city was carried away by the soft breeze that swept across the bay, where hundreds of pleasure-boats were shooting to and fro under sail or oar.