It was bittersweet for Eduard Boivin to see the bowlines thrown across the gap to the deck of the Napoleon III. It was a chilly day in February 1866, yet the sea birds saw the steamer off with their cacophony of farewell caws. He glanced at his pass again: Le Havre to Valparaiso. He had no idea of what he would find in this new world of which he had heard so much. He overhead a man comforting his daughter in German. He promised her that they would live in a big house at a lake, and that she would be able to play with all her dolls again in no time; for now they need to sleep in her trunk. He thought about his own luggage stowed somewhere in the bowels of the ship and instinctively patted his coat. His greatest treasure was still there, in his inside pocket. He only hoped it would survive the journey south. He breathed in the smell he would come to associate with his last moments in Europe: salt, smoke and snowdrops.
