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

302 JUAN FERNANDEZ. Jan. Feb. 1830. received, by cfTering him and all his family a passage in the Adventure, which he accepted ; and on the 17th we left Chiloe. In our way we touched at Concepcion, and anchored at Valparaiso on the 2d of January. We remained there until the 11th of February, and then sailed on our return to Rio de Janeiro, with the intention of passing though the Strait of Magalhaens, and taking that opportunity of completing some few parts, which our former surveys had left unfinished. As the breeze, which, on this coast, blows with the constancy of a trade wind, would carry us close to the island of Juan Fernandez, I determined upon visiting it, for a few days ; and then proceeding again to Con- cepcion. We reached Cumberland Bay, on the north side of Juan Fernandez, on the 16th, and anchored, within two cables lengths of the beach, in ten fathoms. I have seldom seen a more remarkable and picturesque view, than is presented by the approach to Juan Fernandez. When seen from a distance, the mountain of the ' Yungue' (Anvil), so called from its resemblance to a blacksmith's anvil, appears conspicuously placed in the midst of a range of precipitous mountains, and is alone an object of interest. It rises three thousand feet above a shore, which is formed by an abrupt wall of dark-coloured bare I'ock, eight or nine hundred feet in height, through whose wild ravines, broken by the mountain torrents, views are caught of verdant glades, surrounded by luxuriant woodland. The higher parts of the island are in general thickly- wooded; but in some places there are grassy plains of considerable extent, whose lively colour contrasts agreeably with the dark foliage of myrtle-trees, which abound on the island. The Yungue is wooded, nearly from the summit to its base whence an extensive and fertile valley extends to the shore, and is watered by two streams, which take their rise in the heights, and fall into the sea. This valley appears to have been formerly cleared and culti- vated by the Spaniards, who had a colony here ; for the stone