Down The Western Peak,
Contiguous To The Table Mountain, There Fall Two Cascades From A
Perpendicular Height Of Not Less Than 500 Feet.
These are close
together, and about 12 feet broad.
What with the rapid descent of these
streams, and the numerous palm-trees growing close beside them, adorned
with vast clusters of red berries, the prospect is really beautiful. We
should have had no want of goats, could we have conveniently followed
them in the mountains. The Spaniards, before they settled in Chili, left
a breed of goats here, and have since endeavoured to destroy them, by
leaving a breed of dogs, but without effect. Cats are also very
numerous, exactly resembling our household cats in size and colour; and
those of our men who eat of them, assured me they found more substantial
relief from one meal of their flesh, than from four or five of seal or
fish; and, to their great satisfaction, we had a small bitch, which,
could catch almost any number they wanted in an hour. There are not many
sorts of birds; but the sea on the coast abounds with a greater variety
of fish than almost any place I was ever in.
[Footnote 270: These must have been some species of palm, having
palmatad leaves resembling ferns. - E.]
Seals and sea-lions also abound; called lobos de la mar by the
Spaniards, from their resemblance to wolves. They have a fine iron-grey
fur, and when full grown are as big as a large mastiff. They are
naturally surly, and snarl at the approach of any one. Instead of tails,
they have two fins behind, with which they make shift to get on much
faster than the sea-lions, which are large unwieldy creatures, and
prodigiously full of oil.
SECTION IV.
Farther Proceedings in the South Sea, after leaving Juan Fernandez.
We departed from Juan Fernandez on the evening of the 6th October,
having nothing to subsist upon except the smoked congers, one of which
was allowed to each man for twenty-four hours; together with one cask of
beef, four live hogs, which had fed all the time we were ashore on the
putrid carcases of seals, and three or four bushels of cassada meal. We
were upwards of forty men, crowded together, and lying on the bundles of
eels, with no means of keeping ourselves clean, so that all our senses
were offended as greatly as possible. The only way we had of procuring
water, was by sucking it from the cask with a gun-barrel, used
promiscuously by every one. The little unsavoury morsels we daily eat,
created incessant quarrels, every one contending for the frying-pan; and
our only convenience for a fire, was a tub half filled with earth, which
made cooking so tedious, that we had the continual noise of frying from
morning to night. I proposed that we should stand for the Bay of
Conception, as being the nearest to us; and we were hard put to it every
day, while the sea-breeze continued; for, not having above sixteen
inches free board, and our bark tumbling prodigiously, the water ran
over us perpetually; and having only a grating deck, and no tarpaulin to
cover it but the top-sail of our bark, our pomps were barely sufficient
to keep us free.
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