In fact, he believed himself somewhere between the twenty-seventh and the thirtieth parallel, from the bearings he had taken from the Isle of Paques, and it was on the twenty-fifth parallel that he was wrecked.

There was no impossibility in the "Pilgrim's" having deviated by relatively small digression, in such a long passage.
Besides, there was no reason to doubt the unknown's assertions, and, as that coast was that of lower Bolivia there was nothing astonishing in its being so deserted.
"Sir," then said Dick Sand, "after your reply I must conclude that we are at a rather great distance from Lima." "Oh! Lima is far away--over there--in the north!" Mrs.Weldon, made suspicious first of all by Negoro's disappearance, observed the newly-arrived with extreme attention; but she could discover nothing, either in his attitude or in his manner of expressing himself which could lead her to suspect his good faith.
"Sir," said she, "without doubt my question is not rash.

You do not seem to be of Peruvian origin ?" "I am American as you are, madam," said the unknown, who waited for an instant for the American lady to tell him her name.
"Mrs.Weldon," replied the latter.
"I?
My name is Harris and I was born in South Carolina.

But here it is twenty years since I left my country for the pampas of Bolivia, and it gives me pleasure to see compatriots." "You live in this part of the province, Mr.Harris ?" again asked Mrs.
Weldon.
"No, Mrs.Weldon," replied Harris, "I live in the South, on the Chilian frontier; but at this present moment I am going to Atacama, in the northeast." "Are we then on the borders of the desert of that name ?" asked Dick Sand.
"Precisely, my young friend, and this desert extends far beyond the mountains which shut off the horizon." "The desert of Atacama ?" repeated Dick Sand.
"Yes," replied Harris.

"This desert is like a country by itself, in this vast South America, from which it differs in many respects.