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. NORTH-EAST COAST — SAN SEBASTIAN. 457 Smoke was seen at but one place, about two miles inland. In the evening we got a breeze off shore, and stood along the coast, the moon shining brightly and the weather being fine. I kept rather close to the land, during the night, in order to be near the entrance of the supposed St. Sebastian Channel in the morning. ^ " At midnight Cape Santa Inez was distant from us three or four miles, but thence we saw very little of the land, till three, near Cape Penas, after which the weather became thick, and the wind drew round to the N.E., which made me keep more off shore until daylight (9th), when we bore up and stood for the land. Having found Cape Santa Inez and Cape Peiias correctly laid down on the chart we used, I thought Cape St. Sebastian would not be far wrong, and we had taken several observations during the early part of the night to correct our reckoning. Standing towards the shore, we quickly shoaled our water, and found a ground swell increasing. Having made what I supposed to be Cape Sebas- tian, and seeing from the mast-head a large opening to the northward of it similar to that laid down in the chart, with low distant land yet farther northward corresponding to the shores of ' Bahia de Nombre de Jesus,' I stood on confidently, thinking how well the chart of this coast had been laid down, and regardless of the soundings decreasing as we went on. Seeing, however, from the mast-head, what seemed to be a tide-ripple, two or three miles distant, I called the boatswain, who had been much among the tide-races on this coast, to ask his opinion of it : but before he could get up aloft to me, I saw that it was very low land, almost level with the sea, and what I thought the ripple, was the surf on the beach. Standing on a little farther we had but seven fathoms water over a bottom of dark muddy sand, with bits of black slate. At this time, the weather had cleared enough to see the land fifteen or twenty miles on each side, but nothing like an opening appearing, on the contrary, a plain extending to the westward, as horizontal as the sea, I hauled to the wind and stood alongshore to the S.E., to look for an inlet, fancying