Then, having gone through another process of hugging, we proceeded to the boat, accompanied by our new friends. Having refitted the topmast, we waited till the gale had blown itself out; and once more putting to sea, we had a very quick passage round Cape Horn, now no longer clothed in storms, to Valparaiso, the sea-port of Santiago, the capital of Chili.
Chapter Eight.
Adventures in Chili.
One morning, when it was my watch on deck, soon after dawn the cheery sound was heard of “Land on the starboard-bow!” I looked out; and as daylight increased, there appeared, as if rising out of the ocean in their desolate grandeur, capped with snow and towering high above the clouds, the lofty summits of a range of mountains trending away north and south far as the eye could reach. They were the giant Cordilleras. On we sailed with a fresh breeze. The sun ascended with stately pace from behind them, and then a mist arose and shrouded their base. Hour after hour we ran on, and yet we seemed not to have got nearer; till once more the mists lifted, and wild, rocky, and barren heights sloped upwards before us from the ocean. Full sixty miles were gone over from the time those snowy peaks were first seen till we reached Valparaiso, far away down at their base. We must have been a hundred and twenty miles off them at sunrise.
Coming so suddenly from the wild regions of Tierra del Fuego and the unattractive Falklands, Valparaiso appeared to us a very beautiful place. It is very irregularly built—at the bottoms of valleys, on the tops of hills, and on their steep and sometimes rugged sides, rising directly out of the blue ocean, with a succession of range after range of lofty mountains behind it the Cordilleras towering in the background beyond all. Gerard and I were very eager to get on shore; so was old Surley. He wagged his tail, and ran to the ship’s side and barked, and looked up in our faces and looked at the land, as much as to say, “How I should like to have a scamper along the beach there!”
“Yes, you may all three go, if Mr McRitchie will take care of you,” said the captain, laughing. Fleming got leave to accompany us, as he had been unwell for some weeks, and the captain thought a trip on shore would do him good. We found that there would be time to get right up among the mountains, where we hoped to find some good sport, our great ambition being to kill a guanaco—the name given to the llama in its wild state. A number of boatmen good-naturedly helped us to land on the beach, with our guns and carpet-bags. It was market-day; the market was full of vegetables and other provisions, and the place bore a very cheerful aspect. We heard that, in spite of the want of level ground, the town has very rapidly improved in the last few years. The country generally, since order has been established, has become prosperous. Everybody praises the climate, and perhaps there is not a finer in the world; for, although hot in summer, the air is dry and pure, and tempered by the sea-breeze, which regularly sets in every forenoon. In the harbour were two or three old hulks, the remains of the fleet commanded by Lord Dundonald, when he performed one of his most gallant exploits—the cutting out of the Esmeralda frigate, belonging to the Spaniards, from the port of Callao. Fleming was with him, and told me all about it.
“What a lucky adventure!” I remarked.
“No, Mr Harry, it wasn’t luck, it was prudence and forethought which gained the day with him then at all times. There never was a more prudent, and never a braver man. He feared nothing, and took every precaution to insure success. We were three days getting ready. We were all dressed in white, with a blue mark on the left arm—160 blue-jackets and 80 marines—and armed with cutlass and pistols—all picked men. Every man knew exactly what he had to do—some to attack one part of the ship, some another; others to go aloft and loose pails, some to the main, and others to the foretop. The admiral sent all the ships of the squadron out of the bay, except his own flag-ship. At midnight we were told off into fourteen boats. A line of booms had been placed across the mouth of the inner harbour, with only a narrow entrance. Just then the admiral’s boat, which led, ran foul of a Spanish guard-boat; but he whispered to the crew, that if they gave any alarm he would kill every one of them; so they held their tongues, and we were quickly alongside the Esmeralda. The Spaniards were asleep, and before they had time to seize their arms, we were upon them, the frigate’s cables were cut, and we were running out of the harbour. Had the admiral’s directions been followed in all points, we should have cut out every craft in the harbour, and a rich treasure-ship to boot; but he had traitors serving under him, and all was not done which ought to have been done.” Fleming told me also how Lord Dundonald took the strong forts of Valdivia, to the south of Chili, by storm, with his single ship’s company; but I must not now repeat the story.