shot down the stream with groat rapidity, generally at the
rate of ten knots an hour. In this one day we effected what
had cost us live-and-a-half hard days’ labour in ascending.
On the Sth, we reached the Beagle after our twenty-one
days’ expedition. Every one excepting myself had cause
to be dissatisfied; but to me the ascent afforded a most
interesting section of the great tertiary formation of Patagonia.
C I IA I ’T E R X ) .
T i e r r a d e l F u e g o , first a rr iv a l— G o o d S u c c e ss B ay— In te rv iew w itli sav
ages— S c e n e ry o f tlie fo re s ts— S ir J , B a n k s ’s h ill— C a p e H o r n— W ig wam
C o v e— M ise rab le c o n d itio n o f s av ag e s— B e ag le c h a n n e l— F u e g ia n s
— P o n so n b y S o u n d— E q u a lity o f c o n d itio n am o n g n a tiv e s— B ifu rc a tio n
o f B e ag le c h a n n e l— G la c ie r s— R e tu r n to sh ip .
T I E R R A D E L F U E G O .
D e c e m b e r 17tii, 18.32.— Having now finished with Patagonia,
I will describe our first arrival in Tierra del Fuego.
A little after noon we doubled Cape St. Diego, and entered
the famous strait of Le Maire. We kept close to the
Fuegian shore, but the outline of the rugged, inhospitable
Staten land was visible amidst the clouds. In the afternoon
we anchored in the bay of Good Success. While entering
we were saluted in a manner becoming the inhabitants of
this savage land. A group of Fuegians partly concealed by
the entangled forest, were perched on a wild point overhanging
the sea; and as we passed by, they sprang up,
and waving their tattered cloaks sent forth a loud and
sonorous shout. The savages followed the ship, and just
before dark we saw their fire, and again heard their wild cry.
The harbour consists of a fine piece of water half surrounded
by low rounded mountains of clay-slate, which are covered to
the wateFs edge by one dense gloomy forest. A single glance
at the landscape was sufficient to show me, how widely different
it was from any tiling I had ever beheld. At night
it blew a gale of wind, and heavy squalls from the mountains
swept past us. It would have been a bad time out at sea, and
we, as well as others, may cfffi this Good Success Bay.
In the morning, the Captain sent a party to communicate
with the Fuegians. When we came within hail, one of the
four natives who were present advanced to receive us, and
Q 2