Madame Pfeiffer reached Valparaiso on the 2nd of March. She was by no means pleased with its appearance. It is laid out in two long streets, at the foot of dreary hills, these hills consisting of a pile of rocks covered with thin strata of earth and sand. Some of them are crowded with houses; on one lies the church-yard; the others are sterile and solitary. The two chief streets are broad and much frequented, especially by horsemen, for every Chilian is born a horseman, and is usually mounted on a steed worthy of a good rider.
Valparaiso houses are European in style, with flat Italian roofs. Broad steps lead up into a lofty entrance-hall on the first floor, from which, through large glass doors, the visitor passes into the drawing-room and other apartments. The drawing-room is the pride, not only of every European settler, but of every native Chilian. The foot sinks into heavy and costly carpets; the walls are hung with rich tapestry; the furniture and mirrors are from European makers, and gorgeous in the extreme.
A singular custom prevails among the Chilians on the death of a little child. Such an incident is a cause of sorrow and tears in most European families; in Chili it is the occasion of a great festival. The deceased angelito, or little angel, is adorned in various ways. Its eyes, instead of being closed, are opened as wide as possible; its cheeks are painted red; then the cold rigid corpse is decked in the finest clothes, crowned with flowers, and set up on a little chair in a flower-wreathed niche. Relatives and neighbours crowd in to wish the parents joy in the possession of such an angel; and, during the first night, they keep a kind of Irish wake, indulging in the most extravagant dances, and feasting before the angelito in a mood of the wildest merriment.
On the 1st of March our adventurous traveller, having resolved on putting a girdle round about the world, took her passage for China in the Dutch barque Lootpuit, Captain Van Wyk Jurianse. On the 26th of April, her eyes were gladdened with a view of the "island-Eden" of the Southern seas, Tahiti, the largest and most beautiful of the Society group. From the days of Bougainville, its discoverer, down to those of "the Earl and the Doctor," who recently visited it, Tahiti has moved the admiration of voyagers by the charms of its scenery. It lifts the summit of its pyramidal mass out of a wealth of luxuriant vegetation, which sweeps down to the very margin of a sea as blue as the sky above it. Cool verdurous valleys slope gently into its mountain recesses, their swelling declivities loaded with groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees. The inhabitants, physically speaking, are not unworthy of their island-home; a tall, robust, and well-knit race, they would be comely but for their custom of flattening the nose as soon as the child is born. They have thick jet-black hair and fine dark eyes. The colour of their skin is a copper-brown. Both sexes, at the time of Ida Pfeiffer's visit, preserved the custom of tattooing, the devices being often very fanciful in design, and always artistically executed.
The Tahitian women have always been notorious for their immodesty; and notwithstanding the past labours of English missionaries, the island continues to be the Polynesian Paphos. The moral standard of the population has not been raised since they came under the shadow of a French protectorate.
Madame Pfeiffer undertook an excursion to the Lake Vaihiria, assuming for the occasion a kind of masculine attire, very suitable if not peculiarly becoming. She wore, she tells us, strong men's shoes, trousers, and a blouse, which covered the hips. Thus equipped, she started off with her guide, and in the first six miles waded through about two-and-thirty brooks. Then, through a maze of ravines, she struck off into the interior. As they advanced, she noticed that the fruit trees disappeared, and that instead the slopes were covered with plantains, tarros, and marantas, the last attaining a height of twelve feet, and growing so luxuriantly that it was with some difficulty the traveller made her way through the tangle. The tarro, or taro, which is carefully cultivated, averages two or three feet in height, and has fine large leaves and tubers like those of the potato, but not so good when roasted. Very graceful is the appearance of the plantain, or banana, which varies from twelve to fifteen feet in height, and has fine large leaves like those of the palm, but a brittle reedy stem, not more than eight inches in diameter. It attains its full growth in the first year, bears fruit in the second, and then dies; thus its life is as brief as it is useful.
Tahiti is an island of many waters; through one bright crystal mountain-stream, which swept along the ravine over a stony bed, breaking and dimpling into eddies and tiny whirlpools, and in some places attaining a depth of three feet, Madame Pfeiffer and her guide waded, or half swam, two-and-sixty times. We are filled with admiration at the resolute spirit of this courageous woman, who, though the track at every step became more difficult and dangerous, persisted in pressing forward. She clambered over rocks and stones; she forced her way through intertangled bushes; and, though severely wounded in hands and feet, never faltered for a moment. At two points the ravine narrowed so considerably that the entire area was filled by the brawling torrent.
In eight hours the bold traveller and her guide had walked, waded, and clambered some eighteen miles, and attained an elevation of fully eighteen hundred feet. The lake itself was not visible until they came upon its very margin, for it lies deep down in a dark hollow among lofty precipices, which, with startling abruptness, descend to the edge of the darkling waters. To cross the lake the traveller must trust to his swimming powers, or to a curiously frail kind of boat which the natives construct on the spot with equal skill and rapidity. Ida Pfeiffer was nothing if not adventurous, and whatever was to be dared, she straightway confronted. At her request, the guide turned boat-builder. He tore off some branches of plantain, bound them together with long tough grass, laid a few leaves upon them, launched them in the water, and then requested Madame Pfeiffer to embark. She acknowledges to have felt a little hesitation, but, without saying a word, stepped "on board." Her guide took to the water like a duck, and propelled the crazy craft, which, however, made the transit of the lake, and back again, without accident.
Having fully satisfied herself with admiring the lake and its surrounding scenery, she withdrew to a little nook thatched over with leaves, where her guide quickly kindled a good fire in the Indian fashion. Cutting a small piece of wood to a fine point, and then selecting a second piece, which he grooved with a narrow and not very deep furrow, in this he rubbed the pointed stick until the fragments detached during the process began to smoke. These he flung into a heap of grass and dry leaves previously collected, and swung the whole several times round in the air until it ignited. The entire operation did not occupy more than two minutes. Some roasted plantains served for supper; after which Madame Pfeiffer retired to her lonely couch of dry leaves, to sleep as best she might. Who will refuse a tribute of admiration to the courage, self-reliance, and intrepidity of this remarkable woman? Who but must admire her wonderful physical capabilities? How many of her sex could endure for a week the exposure and fatigue to which she subjected herself year after year?