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

126 PORT SAN ANTONIO. March 1828. Bad weather forced us into Port San Antonio ; of which Cordova gives so favourable an account, that we were surprised to find it small and inconvenient, even for the Adelaide. He describes the port to be a mile and a half long, and three quarters of a mile broad : we found the length a mile and a quarter, and the mean breadth scarcely a quarter of a mile. It possesses no one advantage that is not common to almost every other harbour and cove in the Strait ; and for a ship, or Square-rigged vessel of any kind, it is both difficult to enter, and dangerous to leave. Besides the local disadvantages of Port San Antonio, the weather in it is seldom fair, even when the day is fine elsewhere. It lies at the base of the Lomas Jlange, which rises almost perpendicularly to the height of three thousand feet, fronting the great western channel of the Strait, whence it receives upon its cold surface the western winds, and is covered by the vapour, wliich is condensed from them, while in all other parts the sun may be shining brightly. This port is formed by a channel, a quarter of a mile Wide, separating two islands from the shore. The best anchorage is oft' a picturesque little bay on the south island, which is thickly wooded to the water's edge with the holly leaved berberis,* fuchsia, and veronica, growing to the height of twenty feet over- topped and sheltered by large beech, and Winter's-bark trees, rooted under a thick mossy carpet, through which a narrow Indian path winds between arbutus and currant bushes, and round prostrate stems of dead trees, leading to the seaward side of the island. Upon the beach, just within the bushes, and sheltered by a large and wide-spi'eading fuchsia bush, in full flower, stood two Indian wigwams, which, apparently, had not been inhabited since the visit of poor Ainsworth. He had occupied these very wigwams for two days, having covered them over with the boat''s sail ; and remains of the ropeyarns that tied it down were still there : a melancholy memento. In no part of the Strait did we find the vegetation so luxuriant as in this little cove. Some of the Winter''s-bai'k and currant trees had shoots more than five feet long, and many of the * Berberis ilicifolia, — Banks and Solander MSS.