"
"Well them's the Andes; and rough customers they be, let me tell you,
boys. You know there is little amusement in a sailor's walking on the
levellest 'arth and handsomest highways, on account of the bloody ups
and downs a fellow meets with; and so you may get some idee of the
time we had of it, when I tell you, had all the seas we saw in the
last blow been piled on top of each other, they would have made but a
large pancake, compared to them 'ere Andes. Natur' must have outdone
herself in making 'em; and when they were thrown together, what good
comes of it all? Such mountains might be of some use in keeping the
French and English apart; but you leave nothing but bloody Spaniards
on one side of them Andes, and find bloody Spaniards and Portugeese on
the other. However, we found our way over them, and brought up at a
place called Buenos Ayres, from which I worked my passage round to Rio
in a coaster. At Rio, you know, I felt quite at home, having stopped
in there often, in going backward and forward."
"And thence you took passage in the Dundee for London, intending to
get a passage home by the first opportunity?"
"It needs no witch to tell that. I had to scull about Rio for several
months, doing odd jobs as a rigger, and the like of that, until,
finding no Yankee came in, I got a passage in a Scotchman.
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