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.