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

Dec. 1832. san blas — wrecks. 297 Any quantity of fresh water may be obtained in San Bias Bay, by digging wells six or eight feet deep ; and fish are abundant : but it is no place for a ship to enter unless under favourable circumstances of weather, wind, and tide ; and de- cidedly dangerous with a south-easter, because there is then a sea on the banks outside which confuses the pilot's eye, and prevents his distinguishing the proper channel ; besides which, thick weather, if not rain, is the general accompaniment to that wind. On the 3d of December the Beagle anchored off San Bias (as formerly mentioned). Both schooners went out to her, and in returning at night into San Bias Bay, working to windward with a strong flood tide, they passed close to an unknown rock which would have made an end of their cruise had they touched it. The least water they had, however, was eight feet ;* but both vessels were close to it, while the tide was running four or five knots. This rock is in the middle of the entrance to San Bias Bay. At midnight they reached their anchorage, without a dry article in either vessel. On the 6th, Lieutenant Wickham remarked, while at anchor between San Bias and the River Negro, off Point Easa, that the stream of tide began to set northward at half flood, and continued to run in that direction until half ebb, by the shore. " It is not at all uncommon on this coast," he says, " to see wrecks of vessels above high- water mark, and spars strewed along the beach where the sea does not touch them." These wrecks took place during south-east gales, when the sea was raised above its usual level in fine weather : and were the vessels spoken of in the previous chapter, as having been entrusted to ignorant or careless prize-masters, who ran for San Bias or the River Negro, not then knowing that so fine a port as Blanco Bay existed. Strong tides, shoals, a low coast, and bad weather would have perplexed professed seamen ; but those difficulties were insurmountable to such unpractised craftsmen as those who were in charge of them, and most of the prizes wei'e lost. One large ship of four or five hundred * The Paz drew five feet and a half, the Liebre four feet.