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

302 CORPORAL WILLIAMS. Dec. 1 832. On the 12th, Lieutenant Wickham sailed for Blanco Bay, to deliver some letters from me (which I had received from Buenos Ayres) to the commandant Rodriguez. 13th. Off the banks in Anegada Bay there was too much sea (during a S.W. gale) for the Liebre to keep on her course any longer, having run as long as was prudent, and already shipped several seas. When hove-to, under a balance-reefed foresail, with the tiller unshipped, she was dry and easy, and lay about five points from the wind. Mr. Wickham arrived at Argentina on the 16th, and left it on the following day. In sailing out of Blanco Bay, along the south shore, while it was dark, the Liebre grounded frequently ; but her crew got overboard, and hauled her over the banks as often as she was stopped by them, and at midnight she was at sea. A south-east gale on the 18th drove her into the Colo- rado, where Lieutenant Wickham found a strong outset, owing to the ' freshes,' even during the flood-tide. On the 22d, the Liebre entered the river again, and anchored near Carmen. At daylight on the 24th, Corporal Williams was missed, supposed to have fallen overboard in the night, while asleep. He slept on deck sometimes, when tormented by musquitoes and as the Liebre's weather-cloth rail was but a few inches above the deck, he might possibly have rolled overboard into the stream, which would immediately have carried him away. His body was found, about three miles down the river, at sun-set the next evening (Christmas day). The governor (though a Roman catholic) allowed the burial to take place in the con- secrated ground of the church, and the curate himself was present. While the Liebre was absent, Mr. Stokes, in the Paz, sur- veyed many miles of the river, as well as the bar. No vessel drawino' more than eleven feet water can enter without much danger : if at a favourable time any person should be induced to risk crossing the bar with a ship of greater draught, he should bear in mind that it is much more difficult to get to sea than it is to enter, because wind which is fair for approach-