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

IMPROVEMENTS — SETTLEMENT. 261 tiers, and is so much relished by cattle, horses, and pigs, that the plant itself is greatly diminished in quantity, and now can only be found in its former luxuriance upon islands where cattle or hogs have not access. These flags or rushes are more than six feet high ; they make good thatch and a soft bed. There is a shrub, or rather creeper, of which the French made a kind of beer, thought to be wholesome and anti-scorbutic ; and there are other vegetable productions which are of little consequence, perhaps, except to botanists,* and as most of them were long ago well described by Bougainville, I may beg the reader to refer to his fourth chapter (Details sur Fhis- toire naturelle des lies Malouines) for a very faithful and well- written account, to every statement in which, as far as my own knowledge goes, I can bear testimony. Having mentioned the principal productions, it remains to say what more may be effected and what improvements may be made by an industrious colony. Land, which is now in a state of nature, might be surprisingly improved by ploughing and manuring with burned peat or with kelp, which is so abundant on every part of the shore. Walls, or rather mounds of turf, a few feet in height, would assist the slopes of the ground in sheltering cultivated soil from south-west winds, and where stones, as well as turf, are so plentiful, it would be worth while to make a number of small enclosures for fields as well as gar- dens, taking care always to select the sides of hills, or rather sloping grounds which incline towards the north-east. Fresh water being abundant everywhere, and the islands being so much cut into by the sea, that water carriage could be obtained to within a very few miles of any place, there can be no great preference for one locality rather than another, with a view to agriculture alone ; but of course the principal settlement must be near the eastern extremity of the archipelago, because that part is most accessible to shipping, and even now frequently visited. A colony planted near Port William, or at Port Louis, with a small establishment to supply the wants of ship- • " On a spot, twelve feet square, chosen indiscriminately on the rising grounds in the interior, twenty-seven different plants were counted." (Vernet, MS.)