by Cavendish, whose name ivas Tomé Hernandez, afterwm-ds
escaped from him at Quintero, near Valparaiso ; and, proceeding
to Peru, gave an account of the fate of this cruelly neglected
colony.
This was the first, and perhaps will he the last, attempt
made to occupy a country, offering no encouragement for
a human being; a region, where the soil is swampy, cold,
and unfit for cultivation, and whose climate is thoroughly
cheerless.
The name, San Felipe, ceased with the colony ; for Cavendish
called it Port Famine, in allusion to the fate of the colonists,
all of whom, except the man he took away, and one saved
two years afterwards (in 1589), by Andrew Mericke,* perished
from hunger and its attendant diseases; and by this appellation
the hay has since been universally known. To commemorate
the ill-fated town, a very thickly-wooded mountain at the bottom
of the bay, v.hich forms a conspicuous and picturesque
object, has been named by us Mount San Felipe.
At this port, Sarmiento, on his first voyage through the
Strait, communicated with a large party of Indians, in consequence
of which he called it Bahia de la Gente; and the
river, which now bears the name of Sedger, he named San
Juan. Of this river Sai-miento took formal possession, as well
as of the whole Strait, for the ‘ Mui Poderoso y mui Católico
Señor Phelipe Segundo,’ Sec. &c. It was also here that, in consequence
of the miraculous preservation of his vessel on many
• “ N e a r to P o r t Famine they took on board a Spaniard, who was
th e only one then remaining alive of the garrison left in the Strait by
Sarmiento. The account given by this man, as reported by INIagoths, is,
tha t he had lived in those parts s is years, and was one of the four hundred
men sent th ith e r by the King of Spain in the year 1582, to fortify
and inhabit there, to hinder the passage of all strangers th a t way into the
South Sea. B u t th a t town (San Felipe) and the other Spanish colony
being destroyed by famine, he said he had lived in a house, by himself, a
long time, and relieved himself w ith his caliver(5) until our coming th ith
e r.” Burnev, ii. o. 96. T h is man died on the voyage to Europe
Id. p. 97. ‘ ‘ _____________
(¿) A kind of gun —R. F.
occasions, he attempted to change the name of the strait to
Estrecho de la Madre de Dios ; but it had been too long called
Magalhaens, for even the influence of Sarmiento, backed by
the power of Philip, to persuade the world to countenance so
great an injustice.
“ Ma;;;allanes, Señor, fué el primer hombre
Que abriendo este camino le dió nombre.”
Ercílla Araucana, Cant. T. oct. 8.
During an excursion with Mr. Tarn to Eagle Bay,* beyond
Cape San Isidro, we found many wigwams. They were then
novelties to us, and we were ignorant of their being such certain
indications of very sheltered places, as subsequent experience
has shown them to be. We often used them, after they
had been ivell cleaned ou t: a boat’s sail, thrown over the
hemispherical roof, was a sufficient protection from rain;—and
from wind they are always well defended by their situation.
Here we saw, for the first time, that most remarkable bird the
Steamei’-duck. Before steam-boats were in general use, this
bird was denominated, from its siviftness in skimming over the
surface of the water, the ‘ race-horse,’ a name which occurs
frequently in Cook’s, Byron’s, and other voyages. It is a
gigantic duck, the largest I have met with. It has the lobated
hind-toe, legs placed far backwards, and other characteristics
of the oceanic ducks.-)- The principal peculiarity of this bird
is, the shortness and remai'kably small size of the wings,
which, not having sufficient power to raise the body, serve only
to propel it along, rather than through the water, and are used
like the paddles of a steam-vessel. Aided by these and its
strong, broad-webbed feet, it moves with astonishing velocity.
• So named by Bougainville.
t I t belongs to the group which M. Temminck has lately named
Hylobates, without attending to the name long since conferred upon it
by Dr. Fleming. I designated it Oidemia Patachonica, from its large
dimensions, in my communication upon the Ornithology of the Straits.
Zoological Journal, vol. iv. p. 100. On my re turn to England, I found
th a t M. de Freycinet had figured this bird, in the account of his last
voyage in I’U ranie, where it is described by Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard
under the name of Micropterus brachypterus.
D 2