es to that scenery its charm of
unsurpassed loveliness. Nowhere else is there such audacity, such
fierceness even of outline, coupled with such multiform splendour of
colour, such fairy-like delicacy of detail. As a precious jewel is
encrusted by the coarse rock, the smiling bay lies encircled by frowning
mountains of colossal proportions and the most capricious shapes. In the
production of this work the most opposite powers of nature have been
laid under contribution. The awful work of the volcano--the immense
boulders of rock which lie piled up to the clouds in irregular
masses--have been clothed in a brilliant web of tropical vegetation,
purple and green, sunshine and mist. Here nature revels in manifold
creation. Life multiplies itself a millionfold, the soil bursts with
exuberance of fertility, and the profusion of vegetable and animal life
beggars description. Every tree is clothed with a thousand luxuriant
creepers, purple and scarlet-blossomed; they in their turn support
myriads of lichens and other verdant parasites. The plants shoot up with
marvellous rapidity, and glitter with flowers of the rarest hues and
shapes, or bear quantities of luscious fruit, pleasant to the eye and
sweet to the taste. The air resounds with the hum of insect-life;
through the bright green leaves of the banana skim the sparkling
humming-birds, and gorgeous butterflies of enormous size float, glowing
with every colour of the rainbow, on the flower-scented breezes. But
over all this beauty--over the luxuriance of vegetation, over the
softness of the tropical air, over the splendour of the sunshine, over
the perfume of the flowers--Pestilence has cast her fatal miasmas, and,
like the sword of Damocles, the yellow fever hangs threateningly over
the heads of those who dwell among these lovely scenes."[44]

After touching at Monte Video, Lady Florence Dixie's party proceeded
southwards to the Straits of Magellan, and landed at Sandy Point, a
settlement belonging to the Chilians, who call it "La Colonia de
Magellanes." Here they procured horses and mules and four guides, and,
having completed all the necessary arrangements, rode along the shore of
the famous Strait to Cape Negro. On the opposite side they could
distinctly see the Tierra del Fuego, and at different points tall
columns of smoke rising up into the still air denoted the presence of
native encampments, just as Magellan had seen them four centuries ago,
when he gave to the island