The little sloop wound her way in and out among the numerous rocky islets off the coast.

Under their close shelter she picked her way hidden from the Chilean cruisers that turned their guns on everything not of their own kind, on the sea.

The coast is extremely wild and utterly deserted, formed of lofty ledges of rock, hollowed into caverns underneath, by the insidious beating of the trade wind waves.

The chiseled doorways to those caves are rare specimens of Nature's mysterious work; some large, some small and of queer, fantastic shapes; that black-mouthed gape at chance passers, while towering high above, a roof of table land--arid, scorching pampas, is just as uninviting as the water way below.

So desolate is that part of the coast that it is but little known.