“That’s the place I wrote my first letter from,” resumed Jerry. “We lay by there about a week, and had a chance to go ashore. It was the last of March, but it was the latter part of their summer. When it’s winter here, it’s summer there. We had plenty of fruit while we stopped there,—such as oranges, plantains, pineapples, bananas, and mangoes. And the monkeys and parrots that we saw there I guess would have made you open your eyes. They say they grow wild in the woods there. Just as soon as we got anchored, the natives began to come out in canoes, with fruits and poultry and monkeys and parrots and all sorts of knickknacks, to sell. Rio looks real handsome from the water, but it’s a queer place when you get into it. The houses are high, and most of the streets are so narrow that two carriages can’t pass without running upon the sidewalk. The streets are full of slaves, and they seem to do all the work. You will see them with great boxes and bales on their backs, and they take the place of horses and drag heavy carts loaded with goods. A party of us walked out into the country one day; and such splendid forests as we saw I never had any idea of before. The trees were nearly all strange to us, and there was no end to the different kinds. Everything grows rank there. The woods were full of the handsomest birds I ever saw, and there was about every kind of insect that ever was thought of, I should think.
“After we left Rio, we made a pretty good run, until we got in the neighborhood of Cape Horn, and then we had a rough time of it for five weeks. It was about the first of May when we rounded the cape, which is the beginning of winter there. The days were short and cold, and we had gales and rain, snow or hail storms, pretty much all the time. It’s the stormiest place I ever got into. One night we saw a bright-red light in the west, that seemed to be only ten or twelve miles off; but the captain said it was all of a hundred miles distant. It was a burning volcano, in Terra del Fuego. The next day we saw land, for the first time since we left Rio. It was the coast of Terra del Fuego and Staten Land, and it was about as desolate a looking place as you can imagine. It was rocky, mountainous, and barren, and the sight of it was enough to give a fellow the blues.
“Cape Horn itself is a great black rock, high and steep, and extending out into the sea. We were within sight of it when we passed it. It is a terrible bleak place. We had about a dozen hail and snow storms that day, and they say it’s always rough there, where the two oceans meet. Our decks and shrouds and rigging were coated with ice, and the sails were as stiff as sheet-iron. We were all glad enough when we knew we were in the Pacific Ocean; but we hadn’t got through our troubles even then, for we had a very rough time, for two or three weeks, in sailing up the coast. About all the amusement we had at that time was catching cape pigeons, which followed us in great flocks. We caught them with a hook, just as we did the albatross. They look very much like our common pigeons, only they are web-footed.
“Well, at last we dropped our anchor in the bay of Valparaiso, in a little more than three months from the time we left Boston. Here it is,—it’s the capital of Chili,” added Jerry, pointing out its location on the map. “It isn’t so pleasant a place as Rio. The main part of the town is built along the beach, for about two miles. Right back of the city there is high land, where most of the foreign merchants live. There are three hills that rise above the southern end of the city, which they call the ‘Fore,’ ‘Main,’ and ‘Mizzen Tops.’ This is where the sailors go on their sprees, after they are paid off. They drink and fight and gamble and rob and commit every sin you can think of. I suppose some of the worst dens in the world are on those hills.”
“I hope you kept clear of such places,” said Mrs. Preston, rather anxiously.
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid to risk me, mother,” replied Jerry; “I didn’t have much to do with them, I can assure you. I went around among them a little, just to see what sort of places they were, that’s all.”
“But you couldn’t go near such places without danger; it’s contaminating to approach them,” replied his mother.
“I don’t think they harmed me much,” continued Jerry; “but one of our crew got drunk, up on the Main Top, and was robbed of all his wages, and then pitched head-first down the precipice, and almost killed. I guess he won’t forget the Main Top very soon.
“When we arrived at Valparaiso, the crew were discharged; but the captain said he wanted me to stay with the brig, and so I did. We didn’t know where we should go next, as we had no cargo engaged. We some expected to go to San Francisco, but freights were dull, and after waiting about four weeks, the captain finally engaged a cargo of hides for Boston. It took about a fortnight to load and get ready for sea, so our whole stop in Valparaiso was about six weeks.”
Here we will pause, and resume Jerry’s narrative in the next chapter.