Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.1): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

Jan. 1827. Cordova's memorial. 71 A Boreali ad Austra viiserium postridie Kalendae Novembris emigravit. Decimo quarto Kalendas Januarii Patagonicis recognitis litoribus ad ostium appulit freti. Tandem ingentibus perieulis et borroribus tam in mari quam in freto magnanime et constanter superatis et omnibus portubus atque navium. fundamentis utriusque litoris correctissime cognitis ad hunc portum Divini Jose vel Galante septimo idu Januarii pervenit ubi ad perpetuam rei memoriam in monte sanctissimae crucis hoc monumentura reliquit. Tertio et excelso Carolo regnante potente RegfJi jussu facta fuere suo. Colocatum fuit nono Kalendae Februarii Anno MDCCLXXXIX. together with a list of the officers of both vessels, and enclosing a memorial of Cordova's former voyage in the Santa Maria de la Cabeza. The originals are placed in the British Museum ; but before we finally left the Strait, copies were made on vel- lum, and deposited on the same spot. The Beagle left Port Gallant* with a fair wind, which carried her to Swallow Harbour. The next stopping place was Marian's Cove, a very snug anchorage on the north shore, a few miles beyond Playa Parda. Proceeding thence to the westward, with the wind ' in their teeth,' and such bad weather, that they could only see the land of either coast at intervals, and failing in an attempt to find anchorage under Cape Upright, the Beagle was kept under weigh during a squally dark night. In that very place, Commodore Byron, with the Dolphin and Tamar, passed the anxious night, which he thus de- scribes : " Our situation was now very alarming ; the storm increased every minute, the weather was extremely thick, and the rain seemed to threaten another deluge ; we had a long dark night before us, we were in a narrow channel, and surrounded on * One of tbe feathered tribe, which a naturalist would not expect to find here, a ' humming bird,' was shot near the beach by a young mid- shipman. — Stokes MS.