PORT SAN A N TO NIO. March 1828.
Bad weather forced us into Port San Antonio; of which
Cordova gives so favourable an account, that we were surprised
to find it small and inconvenient, even for the Adelaide.
He describes the port to be a mile and a half long, and three
quarters of a mile broad: we found the length a mile and a
quarter, and the mean breadth scarcely a quarter of a mile.
It possesses no one advantage that is not common to almost
every other harbour and cove in the Strait; and for a .ship, or
Square-rigged vessel of any kind, it is both difficult to enter,
and dangerous to leave. Besides the local disadvantages of
Port San Antonio, the weather in it is seldom fair, even when
the day is fine elsewhere. It lies at the base of the Lomas
Range, which rises almost perpendicularly to the height of
three thousand feet, fronting the great western channel of the
Strait, whence it receives upon its cold surface the western
winds, and is covered by the vapour, which is condensed from
them, while in all other parts the sun may be shining brightly.
This port is formed by a channel, a quarter of a mile wide,
separating two islands from the shore. The best anchorage is
oft' a picturesque little bay on the south island, which is thickly-
wooded to the water’s edge with the holly leaved berberis,*
fuchsia, and veronica, growing to the height of twenty feet;
over-topped and sheltered by large beech, and Winter’s-bark
trees, rooted under a thick mossy carpet, through which a
narrow Indian path winds between arbutus and currant bushes,
and round prostrate stems of dead trees, leading to the seaward
side of the island. Upon the beach, just within the bushes, and
sheltered by a large and wide-spreading fuchsia bush, in full
flower, stood two Indian wigwams, which, apparently, had not
been inhabited since the visit of poor Ainsworth. He had
occupied these very wigwams for two days, having covered
them over with the boat’s sail; and remains of the ropeyarns
that tied it down were still there : a melancholy memento.
In no part of the Strait did we find the vegetation so luxuriant
as in this little cove. Some of the Winter’s-bark and currant
trees had shoots more than five feet long, and many of the
* Berberís ilicifolia.—Banks and Solander MSS.
Wi|