Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2- Appendix): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

APPENDIX. 223 coast for about seven miles, where it terminates in low rugged hills a little in-shore of a brown rugged point, with a large white patch on its extreme, which is an islet, but does not show as one from the sea. To the northward of this point there is a fine bay, in which we anchored, and, from a fisherman who came otF, learned that it is Flamenco : it is a very good port, well sheltered from southerly winds, and better from northerly, as the point projects far enough to prevent a heavy sea getting up. The lauding is good in the S.E. corner of the bay, either on the rocks, or on a beach in a small cove in the middle of a patch of rocks, a little more to the northward, where there are a few huts, in which two brothers, with their fami- lies, were living ; their chief employment was catching and salting fish, called cougre, and drying them to supply Copiapo. In one day they had caught foiu: hundred. They appeared to live in a miserable way, in huts made of seal and guanaco skins, much worse than a Patagonian "toldo"; the only water they had to drink was half salt, and some distance from the shore. They sometimes get guanacoes, that they run down with dogs, of which they have a great number. ^ The only vessel they had ever seen here, was a ship which anchored one night, on her way to Las Animas for copper ore, six years ago ; they described Las Animas as a very bad place, not fit for any vessel, and in consequence no cargo had ever been shipped again, but taken to Chaneral, which was better, but not so good as Fla- menco. There are no mines so near Flamenco as to Chaneral. Flamenco may be known by the white patch on the brown rugged point, to the southward of which, in-shore, there are low jugged bills, rising to a high range. On the north side of the bay the land is very low: the north point is a low rocky point, with a detached hUl rising out of the low land a little in-shore. To the northward there is another lull very much Uke it ; in the depth of the bay the land is very low, and a deep valley runs back between two ranges of rugged hills. The hiUs are all covered wdth yellow sand near their bases, and to about half way up their sides, the tops •axe stony, with a few stunted bushes. In the bay, to the northward of Flamenco, in which Las Animas was said to be, we could see no place fit even for a boat to land; the whole bay is rocky, with a few little patches of sand, and a heavy surf was breaking on the shore. The north point of this bay is