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back at the launch, ready to return to Valdivia.  As the sun set, the cormorants came in in long lines to settle down for the night on what seemed to be sand bars along the main channel. Twice our motor refused to run and we drifted back while Salas tinkered with it.  It was 9.30 before we were at the wharf.

[[image-black and white photograph-fort in distance]]
[[image-black and white photograph-section of fort]]
[[caption]Fortifications at Niebla [[caption]]
  
Mar. 4. Election day but all seemed going well.  Considering the large number of police who were every where to be seen, that was not surprising.  At 9.30 Salas appeared again and we took the launch for a run around Isla Teja. This island is made by a dividing and then rejoining of the Río Calle Calle and is really part of Valdivia.  We went ashore at one place (Raúl nearly ruined his almost new saddle shoes by jumping onto a mud bank that looked solid) and found fair collecting.  Salas joined us at the hotel for lunch.  He asked many questions about the United States and chances to go there for study.  Raúl was in a very bad humor, in fact he had been ever since we left Puerto Varas, and he told Salas that "in the United States, negroes and South Americans were treated alike."  Then, for fear I had missed that gem, he repeated it in English.  I managed to refrain from commenting. We left shortly after lunch for the railroad