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

CHAPTER VI. Trees — Leave Port Famine — Patasfonians— Gregory Bay — Bysante Maria — Falkncr's account of the Natives — Indians seen on the bor- ders of the Otway Water, in 1829 — Maria visits the Adventure Relig-ious Ceremony — Patagonian Encampment — Tomb of a Child Women's employment — Children — Gratitude of a Native— Size of Patagonians — Former accounts of their g;igantic height — Character Articles for barter — Fuegians living with Patagonians — Ships sail Arrive at Monte Video and Rio de Janeiro. While detained by northerly winds, the carpenter and a party of people were employed in the woods selecting and cut- ting down trees to be ready for our next visit. After felling thirteen trees, from twenty-four to thirty-six inches in dia- meter, eight were found to be rotten at the heart ; but by afterwards taking the precaution of boring the trees with an augur, while standing, much trouble was saved, and fifteen sound sticks of considerable diameter were cut down. We found one tree, an evergreen beech, too large for any of our saws : it measured twenty-one feet in girth at the base, and from the height of six feet to twenty it was seventeen feet in circumference ; above this height, three large arms (each from thirty to forty inches in diameter), branched off from the trunk. It is, perhaps, the very tree described by Byron in his account of this place. We only once saw it equalled in size, and that was by a prostrate trunk, very much decayed. In this interval of fine weather and northerly wind, we had the thermometer as high as 58°, and the barometer ranging between 29.80 and 30.00 ; but for two days before the wind shifted, the alteration was predicted by a gradual descent of the mercurial column, and a considerable increase of cold. On the 7th May, as there was some appearance of a change, we got under weigh; but were hardly outside the port, when a northerly wind again set in, and prevented our going farther than Fresh-