A vessel bound for California by the way of Cape Horn by touching at Rio Janeiro, Brazil and Callao, in Peru, would divide the voyage into three periods, increasing its interest without much addition to its length of time. Rio Janeiro has one of the most magnificent harbors on the globe, far surpassing in natural grandeur the bay of Naples. The approach to the stupendous mountain coast is inexpressibly grand. The entrance to the capacious roadstead is through a narrow strait of great depth of water unobstructed by rock or shoal, flanked on the North by the huge fortress of Santa Cruz; on the South the "Sugar Loaf" rock proudly rears its lofty cone near one thousand feet above the surface of the deep. The entire bay is nearly surrounded by numerous mountain peaks of every conceivable form.
Leaving Rio we prepare to encounter the terrors of the "Horn," having overcome its Westerly gales and "head-beat seas" debouching on the vast Pacific, we career onward before the "trades" to Callao, the port of Lima and capital of the Peruvian Republic. Here the refreshments peculiar to the Tropics are plenty and of excellent quality. We ride at anchor over the ancient City of Callao, (destroyed and sunk by an earthquake 1746,) in sight of the lofty Andes, the mighty cones of Pichnia and Cotopaxi blazing their volcanic fires far above the region of eternal snow, their ice- frosted summits glittering in the sun, forming a dazzling contrast with the clear deep azure of the tropical skies.
Waving adieu to Callao, our canvas spread to woo the "trades," we sweep onward to Alta-California, and entering the "Golden Gate" of the Cornucopia of the Pacific, drop our anchor in the bay of San Francisco.