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

374 PORT LOW — sTOKEs's JOURNAL. Jan. Chiloe or Southern Chile. I should be glad to learn that this suspicion is ill-founded.* On the 7th we anchored in Port Low, and found Mr. Stokes just arrived, after a fagging cruise among the Chonos islands. His journal contains a great deal of information, from which I have extracted those passages most likely to interest the gene- ral reader. His whale-boat was so loaded at starting (16th Dec.) that her gunwale amidships was but a foot above water. She was twenty-five feet long and six feet broad, and then carried seven men, besides instruments and a month's provisions. Of water she had only two ' barecas,' because on that coast fresh water is only too plentiful. In passing a promontory, the following day, while their boat was still deep, the swell became so great that Mr. Low said he had never before been in a boat exposed to greater danger. In some places where they landed the woods were so thick that Mr. Stokes was obliged to climb trees to get angles ; and not being able to tell previously which would answer his pur- pose, sometimes he made three or four useless ascents, before he could obtain a view : " but," he says " there is a pleasure I cannot express in roaming over places never visited by civilized man." On Rowlett Island potatoes were found growing wild ; the largest dug up measured two inches in length, and an inch in thickness: they were quite tasteless. At the east side of Ipun, on Narborough Island, an excellent small port was found, which was named Scotchwell Harbour. On the shore, near it, was a large bed of strawberries, like those that grow in English woods ; and there was a sweet-scented pea, besides abundance of other vegetable produce, both her- bage and wood, and plenty of water. " Hitherto, all the islands we had seen were of slate-rock, some parts so soft, that I could break them easily with my finger, and I found that they blacked my hand, like plumbago • It is difficult to account for the present abandoned state of these regions, if no harsh usage was expcriijnced by their former natives.