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

110 FIRST NARROW — RACE. Jan. 1828. the point of bursting over us with a deluge of rain, it suddenly vanished, and was succeeded by a beautifully clear and fine night. This favourable appearance gave us hopes of being able to make good our entrance on the following day ; but a fresh gale set in, and kept us at our anchorage. Early on the 14th we made another fruitless attempt to pass the First Narrow. As the Adelaide sailed under our stem, Lieutenant Graves informed me that he had lost an anchor, and had only one left, to which he had bent his chain-cable and that she had shipped so much water in attempting to beat through, that he was on the point of asking permission to bear up when we ourselves gave up the attempt. It blew too hard to give any assistance to the Adelaide, but next morning, when the weather was more moderate, I seized an opportunity of sending our two kedge anchors ; and in the afternoon we supplied her with some water and other necessaries, so that she was comparatively well off, and my anxiety on her account much relieved. Fires on the Fuegian side had been kept up since our arri- val, but we could not distinguish any inhabitants; on the Patagonian shores we saw a great number of guanacoes feeding quietly, a proof of there being no Indians near them. On the 16th, the weather appearing favourable, our anchor was weighed, and, with the Adelaide, we soon entered the sluice of the Narrow, proceeding rapidly, though the wind blew hard against us. The tide carried us to an anchorage, about four miles beyond the western entrance, and it was slack water when the anchor was dropped ; but, no sooner had the stream turned, than we found ourselves in the midst of a ' race,' and during the whole tide, the Avater broke furiously over the ship. At slack water we got underweigh, but the Adelaide not being able (from the strength of the tide), to purchase her anchor, was obhged to slip the cable : it was fortunate that we had supplied her with our kedges, or she would then have been without an anchor. The night was tempestuous, and although we reached a much quieter birth, the Adelaide drifted considerably ; had she remained at the morning's anchorage,