Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
wood and mahogany furniture, fringed table cloths, and overmantels
heavy with ornaments and photographs in silver frames (which pre-
sumably had to be stowed away whenever heavy seas threatened).
Little wonder, then, that the
Monkshaven
men had little enthusiasm
for transferring to an ordinary merchant vessel nor that they were
envious of Arthur Turner, one of their number, who was hired as a
member of
Sunbeam
's crew.
Annie had prepared herself for the voyage by reading the works
of Cook, Dampier, Darwin and other travellers and had noted some
of the sights she was particularly anxious to see. These included the
fierce natives of Tierra del Fuego. Accordingly she had herself rowed
ashore at Sandy Point, 'the only civilised place in the Straits', to ob-
serve three women recently 'rescued' by the local medical officer
from some intercommunity war:
They appeared cheerful and happy, but we are told they are not
likely to live long. After the free life and the exposure to which they
have been accustomed, civilisation - in the shape of clothing and hot
houses - almost always kills them. Their lungs become diseased, and
they die miserably.
12
The
Sunbeam
had a fine, clear passage of the Straits and was
through in five days. Tom Brassey and the crew then took her round
to Santiago while Annie went on a sightseeing tour of inland Chile.
As her coach or railway carriage rattled through the landscape she
noted in considerable detail the trees, shrubs and flowers to be seen
from the window. Mrs Brassey was an expert gardener who knew
her plants. On the cool Chilean uplands, as on tropical islands and
temperate coasts, she could name most of the native flora. What she
could not recognise she could usually discover by using her smatter-
ing of self-taught Spanish:
