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

34 SARMIENTO'S COLONY. 1587. by Cavendish, whose name was Tome Hernandez, afterwards escaped from him at Quintero, near Valparaiso ; and, proceed- ing to Peru, gave an account of the fate of this cruelly neglected colony. This was the first, and perhaps will be the last, attempt made to occupy a country, offering no encouragement for a human being ; a region, where the soil is swampy, cold, and unfit for cultivation, and whose climate is thoroughly cheerless. The name, San Felipe, ceased with the colony ; for Caven- dish called it Port Famine, in allusion to the fate of the colo- nists, all of whom, except the man he took away, and one saved two years afterwards (in 1589), by Andrew Mericke,* perished from hunger and its attendant diseases; and by this appellation the bay has since been universally known. To commemorate the ill-fated town, a very thickly-wooded mountain at the bot- tom of ths bay, which forms a conspicuous and picturesque object, has been named by us Mount San Fehpe. At this port, Sarmiento, on his first voyage through the Strait, communicated with a large party of Indians, in con- sequence of which he called it Bahia de la Gente ; and the river, which now bears the name of Sedger, he named San Juan. Of this river Sarmiento took formal possession, as well as of the whole Strait, for the ' Mui Poderoso y mui Catolico Senor Phelipe Segundo,' &c. &c. It was also here that, in con- sequence of the mii-aculous preservation of his vessel on many • " Near to Port Famine they took on board a Spaniard, who was the only one then remaining alive of the garrison left in the Strait by Sarmiento. The account given by this man, as reported by Magoths, is, that he had lived in those parts six years, and was one of the four hun- dred men sent thither by the King of Spain in the year 1582, to fortify and inhabit there, to hinder the passage of all strangers that way into the South Sea. But that town (San Felipe) and the other Spanish colony being destroyed by famine, he said he had lived in a house, by himself, a long time, and relieved himself with his caliver(i) until our coming thi- ther." Burnev, ii. p. DC. This man died on the voyage to Europe Id. p. 97. " (b) A kind of gun — R. F.