178
Decemb 'uPon the P°int, and to carry • out a kedge to windward.
1----»---- ' That being done, we hove up the anchor, warped up to.
Wedjaef. 21. * *■ '
and weighed the kedge, and proceeding round the point
under our ftay-fails, there anchored with the beft -bower, in
twenty fathoms ; and moored with the other bower, which
lay to the North, in thirteen fathoms«.. In .th-is.pofition we
were fhut in from the fea. by the point above mentioned,
which was in one with the extremity of the inlet to the EafL
Some iflots, off the next point above us, covered us from the
N. W., from which .quarter the wind had the greateft fetch ;
and our diftance from the fhore was about one third of a
mile.
Thus fituat.ed, we went to work, to clear a place to fill
water, to, cut wood, and to fet up a tent for the reception of
a guard,, which was thought n ece fia rya s we had already
difcovered, that, barren as this country is, it was not without
people, though we had not yet feen any, .Mr Wales alfo.
got his obfervatory and inftruments on fhore; but it was-
.with the greateft difficulty he.could find a place of fufficienr
. liability, and clear of the mountains, which every where
furrounded us, to fet them up in ; and at lafl he was obliged
to content himfelf with the top of a rock, not more than
nine feet over.
Thurfday 22. ' Next day I fent Lieutenants Clerke and Pickerfgill, accompanied
by fome of the other officers, to examine and draw a
fketch of the channel on the other fide of the ifland ; and I
went myfelf in another boat, accompanied by the botanifts,
to furvey the northern parts of the found. In my way, I
landed on the point of a low iile covered with herbage, part
of which had, been lately ! burnt; we likewife Law ahuty
figns fufficient that people were in the neighbourhood.
5' After
After I had taken the necefiary bearings, we proceeded De,c^+b-..r_
round the eaft end of Burnt Ifland, and over to what we ■----«-----
• Thurlday i l
judged to be the main of Terra del Fuego, where we found a
very fine harbour encompafled by fteep rocks of vaft height,
down which ran many limpid ftreams of water ; and at the
foot of the rocks, fome tufts of trees, fit for little elfe but
fuel.
This harbour, which I fhall diftinguifli by the name of
the Devil’s Bafon, 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 bafon,
I found thirteen and feventeen fathoms water, and in the
inner, feventeen and twenty-three. This lafl is as fecure a
place as can be, but nothing Can be more gloomy. The
vaft height of the fa vage rocks which encompafs it, deprived
great part of it, even on this day, of the meridian fun.
The outer harbour is not quite free from this inconvenience,
but far more fo than the other ; it is alfo rather more commodious,
and equally fafe. It lies in the direction of North,
a mile and an half diftant from the eafifend of Burnt Ifland.
•I likewife found a good anchoring-place a little to the Weft
■ of this harbour, before a ftream of water that comes out of a
lake or large refervoir, which is continually fupplied by a
cafcade falling into it.
Leaving this place, we proceeded along the fliore to the
weftward, and found other harbours which I had not time
to look into. In all of them is frefh water, and wood for
fuel ; but except thefe little tufts of buffies, the whole
country is a barren rock, doomed by Nature to everlafting
fterility. The low iflands, and even fome of the higher
which lie fcattered up and down the Sound, are indeed
A a s moftly