"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. It is,
at the same time, the most curious and the least known portion of this