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. 035 cable's length distant, and the anchorage is good in eight or nine fathoms, sand and broken shells. In the bay there are a number of straggling rocks, all well pointed out by kelp. It is high water at the full and change at 9 h. 54m., and the tide rises four feet. Landing, at all times is indifferent, and at full and change, owing to the heavy swell, it requires some skill in winding through the narrow channel, formed by rocks on each side. Two miles north and east is Copper Cove, a convenient place for taking in the ore ; there is anchorage in twelve fathoms, a short distance from the shore. After leaving the north point of Cobija Bay, which has a number of straggHng rocks a short distance oiF it, the coast takes a rather more easterly direction ; generally shallow sand bays, yviih rocky points, and hills from two to three thousand feet high close to the coast, but no anchorage or place fit for shipping, until you reach Algodon Bay, twenty-eight miles from Cobija. This bay is small, and the water deep ; we anchored a quarter of a mile from the shore, in eleven fathoms, sand and broken shells, over a rocky bottom ; its only use is as a stopping-place for water, should it be required. It may be obtained at the Gully of Mamilla (seven miles to the northward) from a spring, a mile and a half from the beach ; the usual method of bringing it is in bladders made of seal- skin, holding seven or eight gallons each, with which most of the coasters are provided — ^the only vessels that profit by a knowledge of these places. Algodon Bay may be distinguished by a guUy leading down to it, and that of Mamilla to the northward, which has two paps on the heights, over the north side of it ; there is also a white islet off Algo- don Point. N. 2° W., ten miles from this bay, is a projecting point, called in the Spanish chart San Francisco, but known more generally by the name of Paquiqui ; on the north side of it, and near the extreme, is a large bed of guano, so much used on this coast for manure, that it may be said to be quite a trade. A brig of one hundred and seventy tons was loading with it for Islay at the time we passed ; she was moored head and stern within a cable's length of the rocks, on which a considerable surf was breaking, and the guano was brought off in a balsa to a launch just outside the surf. There is better anchorage farther in the bay ; but this is chosen for convenience. y2