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

420 NEW YEAK souxD. March 1830- tending towards the N.W., with a multitude of islands scat- tered about it. From its east side the land trends away towards a point which is curiously peaked, like a horn, and which I supposed to be the western point of Nassau Bay.* " 22d. We had hardly left our cove, when steady i-ain set in however, we went across towards New Year Sound, sometimes favoured by the wind, but could do little. As far as I saw the day before, the snowy chain of mountains continued to the eastward, therefore I had little hope of finding a body of water in the interior of Tierra del Fuego, about the head of Nassau Bay. About noon we were near WeddelPs ' Indian Cove,' but the weather being thick I did not recognise it, so we stood up the sound with a fresh breeze from the W.S.W. I soon found that it led only to the north and west, and probably communi- cated with some of the passages which Mr. Murray saw lead- ing to the eastward from the neighbourhood of Christmas Sound. Towards the nortli and east I had already noticed a long range of mountains. Concluding therefore from what I then observed, and from views obtained from the heights, that no passage leads from this sound direct to Christmas Sound, and that to return to the Beagle I must go pai-t of the way by the sea-coast, or else go round, by a series of intricate passages, to the places which Mr. Murray had seen in the cutter ; I pre- ferred the coast, as a second view of it would be of use, while a traverse among the islands could not be very beneficial. '' Putting about, we returned down the sound, the breeze still allowing us to sail fast. We closed the western shore to look for Indian Cove, and, as the weather had cleared up, found it Avithout difficulty. It is not so good a place as I expected ; for except at the inner corner close to a run of water, I found only rocky soundings. The few casts of good ground were so close to the shori that the place can only be considered fit for a cutter, or small craft, which could lie quite close to the land. This cove is, in my opinion, too far inland to be of general use ; and an anchorage under Morton Island would be far preferable • False Cape Horn, or Ciipe False.