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

370 SAN ESTEVAN — DISTRESSED MEN. DeC. tage was taken of an interval of moderate weather to run seve- ral miles along the coast northward, and back again. Strong gales set in afterwards and kept us prisoners several days. This Christmas was unlike the last: it was a sombre period. The wind blew heavily (though we did not feel it much, being well shel- tered) ; all looked dismal around us ; our prospects for the future were sadly altered ; and our immediate task was the survey of another Tierra del Fuego, a place swampy with rain, tormented by storms, without the interest even of population : for hitherto we had neither found traces,* nor heard the voices of natives. 28th. Directly the weather would admit, we weighed and coasted along till the sun was getting low, when we ran under shelter from sea and wind, and anchored in the corner of a bay which I afterwards concluded must be the bay or port called Stephens, and more properly, San Estevan. While we were furling sails, some men were seen on a point of land near the ship, making signals to us in a very earnest manner. Being di'essed as sailors, it was natural for us to con- clude that they were some boat's crew left there to collect seal- skins. A boat was sent to them, and directly she touched the land they rushed into her, without saying a word, as men would if pursued by a dreaded enemy ; and not till they were afloat could they compose themselves enough to tell their story. They were North American sailors, who had deserted from the Frances Henrietta (a whaler of New Bedford), in October 1833. When off Cape Tres Montes, but out of sight of land, and in the middle af the night, these six men lowered a boat and left their ship, intending to coast along until they should arrive at Childe. Their first landing was effected on the 18th, but owing to negligence the boat was so badly stove that they could not repair her, and all their hopes of effecting a coasting voyage were thus crushed in the very outset. * With one exception. On a height near Cone Creek Mr. Darwin found, in a sheltered hollow of the rock, strewed with dry grass, what appeared to him the place on which a man had slept. For some time this puzzled us considerably : probably a sealer liad slept there.