Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle, between the years 1826 and 1836. Fitzroy Robert

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52

At high tide the sea-water undermines, by thawing, large masses of ice, which, when the tide falls, want support, and, consequently, break off, bringing after them huge fragments of the glacier, and falling into the still basin with a noise like thunder.

53

"En los dias 24, y 25, oimos un ruido sordo, y de corta duracion, que, por el pronto, nos pareció trueno; pero habiendo reflexîonado, nos inclinamos à creer que fué efecto de alguna explosion subterranea, formado en el seno de alguna de las montañas inmediatas, en que parece haber algunos minerales, y aun volcanes, que están del todo ó casi apagados, movièndonos a hacer este juicio, el haberse encontrado, en la cima de una de ellas, porcion de materia compuesta de tierra y metal, que en su peso, color, y demas caracteres, tenia impreso el sello del fuego activo en que habia tomado aquel estado, pues era una perfecta imagèn de las escorias del hierro que se ven en nuestras ferrerías. —Apendice al Viage de Cordova al Magallanes, p. 65.

54

No canvas could withstand some of these squalls, which carry spray, leaves, and dirt before them, in a dense cloud, reaching from the water to the height of a ship's lower yards, or even lower mast-heads. Happily their duration is so short, that the cable of a vessel, at anchor, is scarcely strained to the utmost, before the furious blast is over. Persons who have been some time in Tierra del Fuego, but fortunate enough not to have experienced the extreme violence of such squalls, may incline to think their force exaggerated in this description: but it ought to be considered, that their utmost fury is only felt during unusually heavy gales, and in particular situations; so that a ship might pass through the Strait of Magalhaens many times, without encountering one such blast as has occasionally been witnessed there. – R. F.

55

56

Mount Boqueron.

57

Including the master, there were on board, when cast away, twenty-two persons.

58

Bougainville Harbour, better known to Sealers by the name of 'Jack's Harbour.'

59

While the 'current' runs eastward for many days in mid-channel, or along one shore, it often happens that the 'stream of tide' either sets in a contrary direction, along each side of the Strait, or that it follows only the shore opposite to that washed by the 'current.' – R. F.

60

"Voyage autour du Monde." 1767.

61

One of the feathered tribe, which a naturalist would not expect to find here, a 'humming bird,' was shot near the beach by a young midshipman. – Stokes MS.

62

Hawkesworth's Coll. of Voyages, vol. i. p. 76.

63

It was here that Commodore Wallis and Captain Carteret separated, the Dolphin going round the world; the Swallow returning to England. Sarmiento's name of Puerto de la Misericordia, or 'Harbour of Mercy,' being of prior date, ought doubtless to be retained.

64

Called the Scilly Isles.

65

'Anas Rafflesii,' Zool. Journ., vol. iv., and Tab. Supp., xxix.

66

Of these a species of mactra (M. edulis Nob.) was most abundant.

67

Burney, i. 35 and 37.

68

Falkner's Patagonia, pp. 110, 111.

69

It is good to be drunk, it is pleasant to be drunk.

70

Two Portuguese seamen, however, who had resided some months with them, having been left behind by a sealing vessel, and taken off by us at a subsequent period of the voyage at their own request, informed us that Maria is not the leader of religious ceremonies. Each family possesses its own household god, a small wooden image, about three inches in length, the rough imitation of a man's head and shoulders, which they consider as the representative of a superior being, attributing to it all the good or evil that happens to them.

71

Burney, i. p. 33.

72

Ibid. p. 135.

73

Burney, i. 318.

74

Ibid, i. 324.

75

Sarmiento, p. 244.

76

Sarmiento's Appendix, xxix.

77

Purchas, iv. ch. 6 and 7.

78

Burney, ii. p. 106.

79

The tribes described by this boy are the

80

Burney, ii, 215.

81

Ibid. ii. 334.

82

Hawksworth's Coll. i 28.

83

Ibid.

84

See a letter from Mr. Charles Clarke, an officer on board the Dolphin, to Mr. Maly, M.D., secretary of the Royal Society, dated Nov. 3, 1766, read before the Royal Society on 12th April 1767, and published in the fifty-seventh volume of the Phil. Trans., part i. p. 75, in which an exaggerated account is given of this meeting. The men are described to be eight feet high, and the women seven and a half to eight feet. "They are prodigious stout, and as well and proportionably made as ever I saw people in my life." This communication was probably intended to corroborate the commodore's account.

85

Ultimo Viage, p. 21.

86

Falkner, according to Dean Funes, was originally engaged in the slave trade at Buenos Ayres; but afterwards became a Jesuit, and studied in the college at Cordova, where, to an eminent knowledge of medicine, he added that of theology. He is the author of a description of Patagonia, published in London after the expulsion of the Jesuits. – (Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay, Buenos Ayres, y Tucuman, por el Doctor Don Gregorio Funes, iii. p. 23, note. Published at Buenos Ayres. 8vo. 1817.)

87

See Dean Funes's account of Buenos Ayres, and of the Indian tribes, vol. ii. 394.

88

We left Gregory Bay in the morning, and passed Cape Virgins in the evening of the same day.

89

On our passage from Santos to St. Catherine's, in latitude 28° south, we caught a 'dolphin' (Coryphena), the maw of which I found filled with shells, of Argonauta tuberculosa, and all containing the 'Octopus Ocythöe' that has been always found as its inhabitant. Most of the specimens were crushed by the narrow passage into the stomach, but the smaller ones were quite perfect, and had been so recently swallowed that I was enabled to preserve several of various sizes containing the animal. To some of them was attached a nidus of eggs, which was deposited between the animal and the spire. The shells varied in size from two-thirds of an inch to two and a half inches in length; each contained an octopus, the bulk and shape of which was so completely adapted to that of the shell, that it seemed as if the shell increased with the animal's growth. When so many learned naturalists have differed so materially as to the character of the inhabitants of the argonauta, it would be presumption in me to express even an opinion; I therefore merely mention the fact, and state that in no one specimen did there appear to be any connexion between the animal and the shell.

90

Nodales, p. 48.

91

Falkner says, in his account of the burial ceremonies of the southern Patagonians – that, after a certain interval, the bodies are taken out of the tomb, and skeletons are made of them by the women – the flesh and entrails having been burnt. It is possible that in this case the body had been so treated, and that the fire near it was for the purpose of burning the flesh, and perhaps with it all the flags and ornaments of the tomb.

92

He was a great favourite with them.