Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

J 833. FALKLAND ISLANDS. ^Sl* although in the month corresponding to September of our hemisphere ; and while working to windward into Berkeley Sound, the gusts of wind were sometimes strong enough to oblige us to shorten all sail. I did not then know of Port William — so close to us, and so easy of access. The aspect of the Falklands rather surprised me : instead of a low, level, barren country, like Patagonia, or a high woody region, like Tierra del Fuego, we saw ridges of rocky hills, about a thousand feet in height, traversing extensive tracts of sombre-looking moorland, unenlivened by a tree. A black, low, and rocky coast, on which the sutf raged violently, and the strong wind against which we were contending, did not tend to improve our first impressions of those unfortunate islands — scene of feud and assassination, and the cause of angry discussion among nations. In a cove (called Johnson Harbour) at the north side of Berkelej' Sound, was a wrecked ship, with her masts standing, and in other places were the remains of two more wrecks. We anchored near the beach on which Freycinet ran the Uranie, after she struck on a rock off Volunteer Point, at the entrance of Berkeley Sound ; and from a French boat which came alongside learned that the Magellan, French whaler, had been driven from her anchors during the tremendous storm of January 12-13 ; that her crew were living on shore under tents, having saved every thing ; that tnere were only a few colonists left at the almost ruined settlement of Port Louis and that the British flag had been re-hoisted on the islands by H.M.S. Tyne and Clio. VOL. II. Q, 2