UfT"
CHAP. between 7E and 73% but on this day it rose to 82% and did not fall
again below 80" until after we quitted Acapulco. I notice the circumstance
in consequence of Captain Hall having experienced precisely
the same change in the same situation
Early in the morning of the 12th March we came within view of
the Tetas de Coyuca, two peaked hills, which are considered by seamen
the best guide to the port of Acapulco, and the next morning came to
anchor in the most perfect harbour of its size that can be imagined.
The town of Acapulco was now tranquil, two Spaniards only being
left in the place, and Montesdeoca having retired to Tulincinga, and
disbanded his troops by order of the congress. The government of
Acapulco was administered by Hon Jose Manuella, a tool of Montesdeoca,
who received me in his shirt, seated upon a Guyaquil hammock,
in which he was swinging from side to side of the apartment.
Having effected our purpose in putting into the port, and taken
on board a supply of turkeys and fruit, which are finer here than in
any other part of the world with which I am acquainted, we put to sea
on the 18th. On the 2Qth of March we crossed the equator in 99° 40'
W., and arrived at Valparaiso on the 29th of April, where we had the
gratification to find, that his Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral
had been pleased to mark his approbation of our proceedings on our
voyage to the northward in 1826, by honouring the Blossom with the
first commissions for promotion which had been issued under his Royal
Elighness’s auspices. Here also I found orders awaiting my arrival to
convey to Europe the remittances of specie, part of which arrived on
the 19th May, and on the 20th we proceeded to Coquimbo to take on
board the remainder.
On the 23d, when seven leagues S. W. ^ W. of this port, we were
surprised by the shock of an earthquake, which shook the ship so
forcibly, that some of the seamen imagined the anchor had been let go
by accident, and was dragging the chain-cable with it to the bottom ;
while others supposed the ship had struck upon a shoal. An hour
afterwards we felt a second shock, hut much lighter. On our arrival
Ha ll’s South America, p. 182.
i l
in Coquimbo we found that these shocks had been felt by the inha- CH^L
bitants, and that there had been one the preceding night, which made
the churches totter until the bells rang. Several slight shocks were
afterwards felt by the inhabitants, who are very sensible to these subterraneous
convulsions.
We remained several days in this port, which enjoys one ofth e
most delightful climates imaginable, where gales of wind are scarcely
ever felt, and in which rain is a very rare occurrence. Situated between
the ports of Valparaiso and of CaUao, where the dews alone irrigate
the «round, it seems to partake of the advantages of the climates
of each, without the inconveniences ofth e rainy season o fth e one, or
of the heat and enervating qualities of the other.
On the 3d June all the specie was embarked, and we put to sea
on our way to Brazil; passed the meridian of Cape Horn on the SOth,
in very thick snow-showers, and after much bad weather arrived at R.o
Janeiro on the Slst July. Here we received on board the Right Hon
Robert Gordon, ambassador to the court of Brazil, and after a passage of
forty-nine days arrived at Spithead, and on the 12th October paid the
ship off at Woolwich.
I n this voyage, which occupied three years and a half, we sailed
seventy-three thousand miles, and experienced every vicissitude of climate
It cannot be supposed that a service of such duration, and of
such an arduous nature, has been performed without the loss of lives,
particularly as our ship’s company was, from the commencement, fiir
from robust; and I have to lament tlie loss of eight by sickness, oi
four by shipwreck, of one missing, of one drowned in a lake, and ot one
by foiling overboard in a gale of wind; in all fifteen persons. To individuals
nothing probably can compensate for these losses; but to t e
community, considering the uncertainty of life under the most ordinary
circumstances, the mortality which has attended the present undertaking
will, I hope, be considered compensated by the services whicli
have been performed by the expedition.