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THREE DAYS IN THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. 



BY J. S. WALKER, ESQ. 



Midnight on the South Atlantic! Through the driving mist, over the 

 surging billows, the huge steam ship foams and roars along. We are off 

 Cape Horn, that tempestuous region so much dreaded by mariners, -whose 

 sterile rocks oppose the only barrier to the long roll of the waves, which, 

 unbroken by any laud for three thousand miles, ceaselessly lash its shores. 

 The ship is surrounded by icebergs of immense size and varied forms, 

 through which we carefully thread our course. At this season of the year, 

 in these high latitudes, the night brings no darkness, and we pass so close 

 to leeward of one large berg, that we can distinctly discern the icicles 

 hanging from the huge caverns, which the waves have fretted in its sides, 

 whilst the surf breaking with a noise like thunder, dashes the spray high 

 up on its icy pinnacles. We look with wonder and awe upon the picture 

 of desolation it presents. Its cold surface of virgin snow has probably 

 never been pressed by any living creature. The solitude seems death-like, 

 and the very wind as it passes over it, comes to us laden with a freezing 

 vapour; but, as if to prove that there is no place in the whole world which 

 the Great Creator has left untenanted, a solitary sea-bird, skimming over 

 the waves on rapid wing, flits by, and is lost to our view in a moment. 

 Whither can this wanderer be bound at this hour of the night, and on 

 what errand? The nearest known land is distant several hundred miles, and 

 it is hastening away in an opposite direction. Perhaps it is in quest of some 

 rocky island hitherto undiscovered by man, far away in the regions of thick- 

 ribbed ice, where it may build its nest and rear its young in safety. "The 

 God of Nature is its secret guide." 



What a different scene breaks upon our view just one week later, when, 

 early in the morning of the last day of the year 1853, the Great Britain 

 slowly steams into the snug anchorage of Port Stanley, the capital, and 

 indeed the only settlement in the Falkland Islands. The sea is as smooth 

 as glass, and the sun shines brightly overhead. Large numbers of fish, 

 which the sailors call Skip-Jacks, are leaping from the water. Terns, 

 Gulls, Whale-birds, Cape-hens, and others of the Palmipedes, are busily 

 engaged fishing. Several specimens of the Great Penguin, (Spheniscus Ma- 

 gellanicus,) poke their heads above the surface of the water to take a peep 

 at us, and dive down again instantly, in a state of intense alarm. A 

 beautiful snow-white Gannet hovers over the ship; whilst in the distance 

 long lines of Wild Geese and Ducks are crossing the Bay. 



At 10 A.M. we drop anchor off' the settlement. The distant country 

 looked anything but inviting. As far as we could see a succession of rock- 

 capped hills extended, covered with grass and herbs up to the summits, but 



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