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. WENMAN ISLET — DAMPIEB, 501 is a fine bold-looking clifF, at the west side, considerably higher than any I had seen in the Galapagos. Mr. Chaffers soon came alongside after we closed the land ; when, his orders beino- all executed, the boat was hoisted in, and we made sail to the north-west in search of Wenman and Culpepper Islets. Next day (20th) we saw and steered for Wenman Islet, an- other crater of an extinct volcano. It is high, small, and quite barren : correctly speaking, there are three islets and a large rock, near each other, which, at a distance, appear as one island, but they are fragments of the same crater. We afterwards passed Culpepper Islet, which is a similar rocky, high, and barren little island. At sun-set we made all sail and steered to set well into the south-east trade wind, so as to expedite our passage towards the dangerous archipelago of the Low Islands, and thence to Otaheite (or Tahiti). While sailing away from the Galapagos, impelled westward over a smooth sea, not only by favouring easterly breezes but by a current that set more than sixty miles to the west during the first twenty-four hours after our losing sight of Culpepper Islet, and from forty to ten miles each subsequent day until the 1st of November,* I will look back at those strange islands, and make a few more remarks on them. There are six principal ones, nine smaller, and many islets scarcely deserving to be distinguished from mere rocks. The largest island is sixty miles in length, and about fifteen broad ; the highest part being four thousand feet above the sea. All are of volcanic origin, and the lava, of which they are chiefly composed, is excessively hard. Old Dampier says,f " The Spa- niards, when they first discovered these islands, found multi- tudes of 'guanoes 'and land-turtle, or tortoise, and named them the Galapagos | Islands." Again, " the air of these islands is temperate enough, considering the clime. Here is constantly a fresh sea-breeze all day, and cooling refreshing winds in the night ; therefore the heat is not so violent here * Lai 10°. 14'. S. lon^. 120°. 35'. W. t Dampier's Voyage round the World, 1681—1691. (At the Gala- pagos in 1684). J Galapago being Spanish for tortoise.