After A Little More Trouble We Gained
The Peat, And Then The Bare Slate Rock.
A ridge connected this hill with another, distant some
miles, and more lofty, so that patches of snow were lying
on it.
As the day was not far advanced, I determined to
walk there and collect plants along the road. It would have
been very hard work, had it not been for a well-beaten and
straight path made by the guanacos; for these animals, like
sheep, always follow the same line. When we reached the
hill we found it the highest in the immediate neighbourhood,
and the waters flowed to the sea in opposite directions. We
obtained a wide view over the surrounding country: to the
north a swampy moorland extended, but to the south we
had a scene of savage magnificence, well becoming Tierra
del Fuego. There was a degree of mysterious grandeur
in mountain behind mountain, with the deep intervening
valleys, all covered by one thick, dusky mass of forest. The
atmosphere, likewise, in this climate, where gale succeeds
gale, with rain, hail, and sleet, seems blacker than anywhere
else. In the Strait of Magellan looking due southward from
Port Famine, the distant channels between the mountains
appeared from their gloominess to lead beyond the confines
of this world.
December 21st. - The Beagle got under way: and on the
succeeding day, favoured to an uncommon degree by a fine
easterly breeze, we closed in with the Barnevelts, and running
past Cape Deceit with its stony peaks, about three
o'clock doubled the weather-beaten Cape Horn. The evening
was calm and bright, and we enjoyed a fine view of the
surrounding isles. Cape Horn, however, demanded his tribute,
and before night sent us a gale of wind directly in our teeth.
We stood out to sea, and on the second day again made the
land, when we saw on our weather-bow this notorious promontory
in its proper form - veiled in a mist, and its dim
outline surrounded by a storm of wind and water. Great
black clouds were rolling across the heavens, and squalls
of rain, with hail, swept by us with such extreme violence,
that the Captain determined to run into Wigwam Cove.
This is a snug little harbour, not far from Cape Horn; and
here, at Christmas-eve, we anchored in smooth water. The
only thing which reminded us of the gale outside, was every
now and then a puff from the mountains, which made the
ship surge at her anchors.
December 25th. - Close by the Cove, a pointed hill, called
Kater's Peak, rises to the height of 1700 feet. The surrounding
islands all consist of conical masses of greenstone,
associated sometimes with less regular hills of baked and
altered clay-slate. This part of Tierra del Fuego may be
considered as the extremity of the submerged chain of
mountains already alluded to. The cove takes its name of
"Wigwam" from some of the Fuegian habitations; but every
bay in the neighbourhood might be so called with equal
propriety.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 169 of 402
Words from 87052 to 87560
of 208183
