In May 1891, at Jokohama, Valois was ordered to protect German interests in Chile against the Chilean Civil War. She ran out of coal on the way there and had to be towed for 97 hours. After stopping briefly in San Francisco, she traveled to Valparaiso arriving on July 9. They traveled on to Iquique and Coquimbo during July and August. As the war came to a head, they returned to Valparaiso on August 20 and "Leipzig" and the British corvette sent a joint landing party to Valparaíso to protect the British and German quarters of the city. At the end of the Civil War, "Leipzig" visited various South American ports and then Cape Town. In March 1892 she anchored in Delagoa Bay, from which the Cruiser Squadron's new commander Friedrich von Pawelsz led a delegation to Paul Kruger, the new president of the Boer Republic of Transvaal. The African Cruiser Squadron itself returned to Germany for deactivation at Kiel in 1893.