Next Day I Sent Lieutenants Clerke And Pickersgill, Accompanied By Some Of The Other Officers, To Examine And Draw A Sketch Of The Channel On The Other Side Of The Island; And I Went Myself In Another Boat, Accompanied By The Botanists, To Survey The Northern Parts Of The Sound.

In my way I landed on the point of a low isle covered with herbage, part of which had been lately burnt:

We likewise saw a hut, signs sufficient that people were in the neighbourhood. After I had taken the necessary bearings, we proceeded round the east end of Burnt Island, and over to what we judged to be the main of Terra del Fuego, where we found a very fine harbour encompassed by steep rocks of vast height, down which ran many limpid streams of water; and at the foot of the rocks some tufts of trees, fit for little else but fuel.[1]

This harbour, which I shall distinguish by the name of the Devil's Bason, is divided, as it were, into two, an inner. and an outer one; and the communication between them is by a narrow channel five fathoms deep. In the outer bason I found thirteen and seventeen fathoms water, and in the inner seventeen and twenty-three. This last is as secure a place as can be, but nothing can be more gloomy. The vast height of the savage rocks which encompass it, deprived great part of it, even on this day, of the meridian sun. The outer harbour is not quite free from this inconvenience, but far more so than the other; it is also rather more commodious, and equally safe. It lies in the direction of north, a mile and a half distant from the east end of Burnt Island. I likewise found a good anchoring-place a little to the west of this harbour, before a stream of water, that comes out of a lake or large reservoir, which is continually supplied by a cascade falling into it.

Leaving this place, we proceeded along the shore to the westward, and found other harbours which I had not time to look into. In all of them is fresh water, and wood for fuel; but, except these little tufts of bushes, the whole country is a barren rock, doomed by nature to everlasting sterility. The low islands, and even some of the higher, which lie scattered up and down the sound, are indeed mostly covered with shrubs and herbage, the soil a black rotten turf, evidently composed, by length of time, of decayed vegetables.

I had an opportunity to verify what we had observed at sea, that the sea- coast is composed of a number of large and small islands, and that the numerous inlets are formed by the junction of several channels; at least so it is here. On one of these low islands we found several huts, which had lately been inhabited; and near them was a good deal of celery, with which we loaded our boat, and returned on board at seven o'clock in the evening. In this expedition we met with little game; one duck, three or four shags, and about that number of rails or sea-pies, being all we got.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 454 of 461
Words from 235637 to 236179 of 239428