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terested by finding, on a irild part of the coast, a bed made
of grass beneath a ledge of rock. Close by it there had been
a fire, and the man had used an axe. The fire, bed, and
situation, showed the dexterity of an Indian; hut he could
scarcely have been an Indian; for the race is in this part
extinct, owing to the Catholic desire of making at one blow
Christians and Slaves. 1 had at the time some misgivings
(though they afterwards were proved to have been groundless)
that the solitary man, who had made his bed on this
wild spot, must have been some poor shipwrecked sailor,
who, in trying to travel up the coast, had here lain himself
down for his dreary night.
D e c e m b e r 2 8 t h .—The weather continued very bad, but
it at last permitted us to proceed with the survey. The time
hung hea\-y on our hands, as it always did when we were
delayed from day to day by successive gales of wind. In the
evening another harbour was discovered, where we anchored.
Directly afterwards a man was seen waving his shirt; and a
boat was sent which brought hack two seamen. A party of
six had run away from an American whaling vessel, and had
landed a little to the southward in a boat, which was shortly
afterwards knocked to pieces by the surf. They had now
been wandering up and down the coast for fifteen months,
without knowing which way to go, or where they were.
AVhat a singular piece of good fortune it was that this harbour
was now discovered! Had it not been for this one
chance, they might have wandered till they had grown old
men, and at last have perished on this wild coast. Their
sufferings had been very great, and one of their party had lost
his life, by faUing from the cliffs. They were sometimes
obliged to separate in search of food, and this explained the
bed of the solitary man. Considering what they had undergone,
I think they had kept a very good reckoning of time;
though they had lost four days, by making this the 24th
instead of the 28th.
D e c e m b e r 3 0 t h .-—AVe anchored in a snug little cove at
the foot of some high hills, near the northern extremity of
A
Tres Montes. After brealcfast the next morning, a party
ascended one of these mountains, which had an altitude oi
2400 feet. The scenery was remarkalfie. The chief part oi
the range was composed of grand, solid, abrupt masses of
granite, which appeared as il' they had been coeval with the
beginning of the world. The granite is capped with slaty
PI gneiss, and this in the lapse of ages has been worn into
strange finger-shaped points. These two formations, thus
differing in their outlines, agree in being almost destitute of
vegetation. This barrenness had to our eyes a still stranger
appearance, from our having been so long accustomed to the
sight of an almost universal forest of dark green trees. I
took much delight in examining the structure of these mountains.
The complicated and lofty ranges bore a noble aspect
of durability,—equally profitless, however, to man and to all
other animals. Granite to the geologist is classic ground:
from its wide-spread limits, and its beautiful and compact
texture, few rocks have been more early recognised. Granite,
has given rise, perhaps, to more discussion concerning its
origin than any other formation. AVe generally see it constituting
the fundamental rock, and, however formed, we
know it is the deepest layer in the crust of this globe, to
which man has been able to penetrate. The limit of man’s
knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest, which is
perhaps increased hy its close neighbourhood to the realms
of imagination.
J a n u a r y 1 s t , 1835.—The new year is ushered in, with
the ceremonies proper to it in these regions. She lays out
no false hopes; a heavy N. AV. gale, with steady rain,
bespeaks the rising year. Thank God, we are not destined
here to see the end of it, but hope then to be in the Pacific,
where a blue sky teUs one there is a heaven—a something
beyond the clouds above our heads.
The N. W. winds prevailing for the next four days, we
only managed to cross a great bay, and then anchored in
another secure harbour. I accompanied the captain in a
boat to the head of a deep creek. On the way the number
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