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286 ENGLISH BANK SAN BLAS BANKS. July
rain ; and if ragged, or streaky, of wind also. Light foggy
clouds, rising early, often called the ‘ pride of the morning,’
are certain forerunners of a fine day.
On the 8th of July the Beagle sailed from Maldonado, and
anchored off Monte Video for a few days, waiting for the
arrival of a packet from Lngland. Directly the letters were
received she returned to Maldonado.
On the 18th, my survey work heing finished, and our help
no longer required at Gorriti, we sailed to sound eastward in
the latitude of the English Bank, and then returned to make
a few arrangements with Lieutenant Wickham, and obtain observations
for the chronometers, previous to making an excursion
towards the south.
On the 24th we sailed to Cape San Antonio, and thence
along the coast, close by Cape Corrientes, and skirting the
San Bias banks, till we anchored off the river Negro. There
we found the Paz and Liehre just returned from their examination
of those intricacies which surround the ports between
Blanco Bay and San Bias. The Liebre came out to meet us
with a satisfactory report of progress, as well as health ; and,
at her return, Mr. Darwin took the opportunity of going into
the river, with the view of crossing overland to Buenos Ayres,
by way of Argentina : after which, he proposed to make a
long excursion from Buenos Ayres into the interior, while the
Beagle would be employed in surveying operations along sea-
coasts uninteresting to him. We then got under sail and began
our next employment, which was sounding about the outer
banks off San Bias and Union Bays, and examining those parts
of Ports San Antonio and San José which the Paz and Liebre
had been prevented doing by wind and sea ; besides which, I
wished to see them myself, for many reasons, more closely
than hitherto. The accumulation of banks about San Bias,
and near, though southward of the river Colorado, is an object
of interest when viewed in connection with the present position
of the mouth of that long, though not large, river, which traverses
the continent from near Mendoza, and which may have
contributed to their formation ; at least, so think geologists.
1833 ANEGADA BAY LOS CESARES. 287
Be this as it may, there is now a mass of hanks extending far
to seaward, which make the coast from Blanco Bay to San
Bias extremely dangerous; more particularly, as the adjoining
shore is almost a dead flat, and so low, that in many parts it
can only be seen when the observer is among, or upon, the
shoals. The space between Union Bay and San Bias was very
appropriately named by the Spaniards Bahia Anegada (dried
up bay), because it is so shallow, and the inner parts are rather
drowned land than actual water, being only covered at half
tide. Falkner says (p. 77), that a Spanish vessel was lost in
this bay, the crew of which “ saved themselves in one of the
boats, and sailing up the river arrived at Mendoza.” Whether
this ship was called ‘ Los Cesares’ I am not aware, but as
there is an islet in the ‘ Bahia Anegada’ named in the old
Spanish charts, ‘ Isla de los Cesares,’ I suspect that such was
the fact, and incline to connect this story with the many
rumours of a settlement, ‘ de los Cesares,’ somewhere in the
interior of Patagonia. Falkner says, that “ the crew saved
themselves in one of the boats but there were few Spanish
vessels about that coast in the early part of the eighteenth
century whose whole crew could have been saved in one of
their boats.-)- I f the remainder had formed even a temporary
encampment about San Bias, or near the river Negro, it would
have been described, with much exaggeration, by Indians of
the west, as well as by those of the East country. A few men
might have been admitted into a tribe of Indians who improved
their habits and dwellings, so far as to have given rise to the
curious reports so luuch circulated in South America, during
the last century and even in this—of a colony of white people,
with houses and gardens, in the interior of the continent, somewhere
about the latitude of forty degrees; according to some
* “ In the year 1734, or thereabouts (within how many years after or
before that time ?), the masts and part of the hulk were seen,” (Falkuer,
p. 77.) The so-called ‘ Isla de los Cesares ’ is closely attached to, if not a
part of the main land at the west side of Anegada Bay.
+ Reports of the Cesares began to he circulated in the early part of
the eighteenth century.