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

166 MOUNTAINS INDIAN WIGWAMS. April 1828. purpose of obtaining bearings of remote points : he remarked to me, ' that many miles were passed over in ascending even moderate heights ; the land was very high and very irregular ; the mountains seemed not to lie in any uniform direction, and the longest chain that was observed did not exceed five miles. The flat land between the heights was never two miles in extent : the ground was always swampy, and generally there were small lakes receiving the drainage of mountain-streams. Indeed the whole country appeared broken and unconnected."" " Some of the mountains were ascertained to be 2,500 feet high, but the general height was about 2,000 feet. A large island, on the northern side of the harbour, is an excellent watering-place, at which casks may be conveniently filled in the boat. It is also an object of great natural beauty : the hill, which forms its western side, rises to seven or eight hun- dred feet, almost perpendicularly, and when viewed from its base in a boat, seems stupendous : it is clothed with trees, among wliich the light-green leaves of the Winter s-bark tree, and the red flowers of the Fuchsia, unite their tints with the darker foliage of other trees. This perpendicular part extends to the northward till it is met by the body of the mountain, which is arched into a spacious cavern, fifty yards wide and a hundred feet high, whose sides are clothed with a rich growth of shrubs ; and before it a cascade descends down the steep face of the mountain. " On the shore we found two Indian wigwams and the remains of a third ; but they had evidently been long deserted, for the grass had grown up both around and within them to the height of more than a foot. These wigwams were exactly similar to those in the Strait of Magalhaens : one was larger than any I had met with, being eighteen feet in diameter. The only land bii'ds I saw were two owls, which passed by us after dusk with a screechincp noise. " On the patches of sandy beach, in the inner harbour, we hauled the seine, but unsuccessfully ; we expected to find fish plentiful here, from seeing many seals on the rocks outside, and from finding the water quite red with the spawn of cray-