It is located in a beautiful nook sheltered by high
mountains from all the severe storms that sweep over the island, which
are not many; for it lies near the limits of the trade-wind regions,
being in latitude 35 1/2 degrees. The island is about fourteen miles
in length, east and west, and eight miles in width; its height is over
three thousand feet. Its distance from Chile, to which country it
belongs, is about three hundred and forty miles.
Juan Fernandez was once a convict station. A number of caves in which
the prisoners were kept, damp, unwholesome dens, are no longer in use,
and no more prisoners are sent to the island.
The pleasantest day I spent on the island, if not the pleasantest on
my whole voyage, was my last day on shore,--but by no means because it
was the last,--when the children of the little community, one and all,
went out with me to gather wild fruits for the voyage. We found
quinces, peaches, and figs, and the children gathered a basket of
each. It takes very little to please children, and these little ones,
never hearing a word in their lives except Spanish, made the hills
ring with mirth at the sound of words in English. They asked me the
names of all manner of things on the island. We came to a wild
fig-tree loaded with fruit, of which I gave them the English name.
"Figgies, figgies!" they cried, while they picked till their baskets
were full. But when I told them that the _cabra_ they pointed out was
only a goat, they screamed with laughter, and rolled on the grass in
wild delight to think that a man had come to their island who would
call a cabra a goat.
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