Excerpt from Gerst cker's Travels: Rio De Janeiro; Buenos Ayres; Ride Through the Pampas; Winter Journey Across the Cordilleras; Chili; Valparaiso; California and the Gold Fields Let the reader imagine to himself an Herculean figure of colossal frame, with a curled beard, ruddy cheeks, and bright good-tem pered looking eyes, only a little too portly; a man, therefore, who would have been conspicuous by his size alone, but who attracted still greater notice by his dress and accoutrements: a green blouse, light trousers, and a gray wide-awake; round the body, a white leathern belt five inches broad, from which were dangling a huge broadsword dragging noisily on the pavement, and besides it, a cutlass; and, moreover, a clasp-knife about eighteen inches long; and as if this were not enough, there were sticking in it pistols and a dagger, the handle of which served as a pocket pistol. The wild and ludicrous effect of his appearance was still further heightened by the companions of our hero. These were three diminutive individuals, here called the satellites, who sport round their huge leader as the pilot-fish does round the shark. These three little fellows likewise wear green blouses, wide awakes, and white belts; they look exactly like young giants, only, that instead of the broadsword, very short knives or cut lasses adorned their sides. I have not seen anything half so odd for many years. Emigration seems this year to go on at a greater rate than ever. Bremen is literally swarming with emigrants from all parts of Germany, and every train brings new masses, for the convey ance of which express trains are often required. The steamboats of the Weser, in their regular journeys, are no longer sufficient to carry all the passengers to their ships and to the other harbours; so that even the steam-tugs are employed for passenger traffic, a thing which had not been necessary in any preceding year. Our ship, the Talisman, is a stout barque of 180 tons, and is said to be a good sailer. The captain, still a young man, sails for the first time as actual commander of a vessel. The supercargo has seen long service at sea; the cabin passengers seem nearly all to belong to the educated classes; there is, therefore, every prospect (wind and weather permitting) of an agreeable and quick passage. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.