The children commenced their search, and before George exclaimed “South Shetland, dear mamma!” every eye, although still dimmed with tears, was eagerly in quest of the desired parallel.

MRS. WILTON.  “Right, George!  I fear it will not be prudent to venture any further south, as we may encounter some ice-islands, for there are several in this vicinity; but I should like to hear, if any of you can tell me why Deception Isle (one of the South Shetland group) is so called?”

DORA.  “It is so called from its very exact resemblance to a ship in full sail, and has deceived many navigators.  This island is inhabited only by penguins, sea-leopards, pintadors, and various kinds of petrels.  It is volcanic, apparently composed of alternate layers of ashes and ice, as if the snow of each winter, during a series of years, had been prevented from melting in the following summer by the ejection of cinders and ashes from some part where volcanic action is still in progress; and that such is the case seems probable, from the fact of there being at least one hundred and fifty holes from which steam issues with a loud hissing noise, and which are, or were, visible from the top of one of the hills immediately above the small cone where Lieutenant Kendall’s ship was secured, to whom I am indebted for this information.”

MRS. WILTON.  “The only habitable islands near here are the Sandwich Isles (not Captain Cook’s) and Georgia; but they are neither large, numerous, nor important:  we will, therefore, round the Cape and enter the Pacific Ocean.”

DORA “According to Emma’s chart we are to follow the coast, calling at as many of the islands as are worthy of notice; but, previously, here are the bays to be enumerated, and such a number of them!  I could scarcely have imagined it possible for any shores to be so indented.”

EMMA.  “I need not read all the names, as with your maps you can each read for yourself; but the following are the largest:  Gulf of Trinidad.  Gulf of Penas, Gulf of Ancud by the Island of Chiloe, and Conception Bay on the coast of Chili.”

MRS. WILTON.  “Here is a part for me to play, I perceive.  The natives of the coast of the Gulf of Penas are descendants of the Araucanians, a warlike people, who, observing the great advantages the Europeans possessed from the use of gunpowder, tried in vain to learn its composition.  They saw negroes among the Spaniards, and because their color was supposed to resemble that of gunpowder, they imagined they had discovered the long-wished-for secret.  A poor negro was caught by them and burnt alive, in the full belief that gunpowder would be obtained from his ashes.”

GEORGE.  “Poor man! what ignorant people they must be.  Are we to stop at the Island of Chiloe?”