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

April 1828. oak keam of xiii: wager. 165 " As our present situation was completely exposed to westerly winds, I went to examine a deep bight in the southern shore, which proved to be a good harbour, perfectly sheltered from all winds, with a depth of three and a half fathoms over a fine sandy bottom. In the afternoon we weighed anchor and warped into a berth in the inner harbour, where we moored in three fathoms. I found lying, just above high-water mark, half buried in sand, the beam of a large vessel.* We imme- diately conjectured that it had formed part of the ill-fated Wager, one of Lord Anson''s squadron (of whose loss the tale is so well told in the narratives of Byron and Bulkeley) : the dimensions seemed to correspond with her size, and the con- jecture was strengthened by the circumstance that one of the knees that attached it to the ship's side had been cut, which occurred in her case, when her decks were scuttled to get at the provisions ; all the bolts were much corroded ; but the wood, with the exception of the outside being worm-eaten, was perfectly sound. Our carpenter pronounced it to be English oak. " The land about this harbour is similar to that about Port Henry. Its shores are rocky, with some patches of sandy beach, but every where covered with trees, or an impervious jungle, composed of dwarfish trees and shrubs. The land, in most places, rises abruptly from the shore to mountains, some of which attain an altitude of more than two thousand feet, and are quite bare at their summits and on their sides, except in sheltered ravines, where a thick growth of trees is found. These mountains, or at least their bases, where we could break off specimens, were of basalt, with large masses of quartz imbedded in it ; but on some parts of the shores the rocks were of very coarse granite. "As in the vicinity of Port Henry, the thickness of the jungle prevented our going far inland ; the greatest distance was gained by Lieut. Skyring, who, with his wonted zeal to prosecute the survey, ascended some of the mountains for the * Length twenty feet five inches and a half, sided twelve inches, and moulded eight inches and a half.