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

1835. HEllEADUHA— COaUIMBO. 427 to the land until the 6th of June: and all her crew were encamped on shore near the ship, while she was thoroughly cleared out, re-stowed, and painted. At Coquimbo (or Serena) we always met with a hearty welcome whenever duty required that we should go there, or when we went for our own amuse- ment. The Yntendente, Yrrisarte, the kind-hearted Mr. Ed- wards and his family, and others, will not easily be forgotten by the Beagle''s officers. As another real benefactor to the public service, I may be allowed to mention Don Francisco Vascuiian, who lent me a vessel of thirty-five tons, called the Constitucion, to be em- ployed in forwarding the survey. This craft was built in the River Maule, and bore a very high character as a sea boat. Lieutenant Sulivan, Mr. King, Mr. Stewart, and Mr. Forsyth volunteered to go in her ; so giving them a boat's crew, a small boat, a native pilot with his balsa, and as good an outfit as my means would allow, I despatched this new tender to examine a portion of coast near Coquimbo, which the Beagle had not seen sufficiently, and directed Lieut. Sulivan, if he found the vessel efficient, to continue afterwards surveying along the coast of Chile, as far as Paposo, whence he was to repair to Callao.* On the 6th of June, the Beagle left Herradura, and sailed towards Valparaiso. Anxious, however, to communicate with Don Diego Portales,*}- who was staying at his country-house, near Papudo, I touched there in my way ; arrived at Valparaiso on the 14th of June, and immediately began the arrangements necessary for our preparations to quit Chile. The liberal assis- tance rendered by Don Francisco Vascuiian, in lending me his own vessel, without any kind of agreement or remuneration whatever, had enabled me to look forward to adding much of the coast of Chile to our gleanings in hydrography ; for I well knew that Lieutenant Sulivan would not only make despatch, but extremely correct work. Here I may remark, that if little is said henceforth about • Orders in Appendix. t Don Diego Portales, one of the ablest men in South America, was murdered, in 1837, by some of his ungrateful countrymen.