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

June 1828. weather — perilous situation. 179 he described them to be exactly like those we had hitherto met to the southward. " This was the northernmost point at which we noriced traces of human beings. "Finding the boats' crews suffer much from their unavoidable exposure during continually wet weather, I ordered some can- vas to be given to each man for a frock and trowsers, to be painted at the first opportunity, as a protection against rain and spray. " Nothing could be more dreary than the scene around us. The lofty, bleak, and barren heights that surround the inhospitable shores of this inlet, were covered, even low down their sides, with dense clouds, upon which the fierce squalls that assailed us beat, without causing any change: they seemed as immovable as the mountains where they rested, " Around us, and some of them distant no more than two- thirds of a cable's length, were rocky islets, lashed by a tre- mendous surf; and, as if to complete the dreariness and utter desolation of the scene, even birds seemed to shun its neigh- bourhood. The weather was that in which (as Thompson em- phatically says) ' the soul of man dies in him.' " In the course of our service since we left England, we have often been compelled to take up anchorages, exposed to great risk and danger. But the Beagle's present situation I deemed by far the most perilous to which she had been exposed : her three anchors were down in twenty-three fathoms of water, on a bad bottom of sand, with patches of rock. The squalls were terrifically violent, and astern of her, distant only half a cable's length, were rocks and low rocky islets, upon which a furious surf raged. " I might use Bulkeley's words in describing the weather in this neighbourhood, and nearly at this season : ' Shov/ers of rain and hail, which beat with such violence against a man's face, that he can hardly withstand it.' " On the 10th, the wind being moderate, and the weather better, preparations were made to quit this horrid place. We put to sea, with a moderate breeze from N. b. W., which a 2