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regions, \\c fituad wc could not Ijeat lo ^\■ill(l\\•a^(l IVoiii False 

 Cape Horn. The second time we driÜcd dowii ainong tlie 

 Wollaston Islands & were in considerable danger, drifting liopc- 

 lessly before the S. W. gale during Ihe night among Lslets bul 

 little known. 



However the Aveather moderated, & we determined to return 

 to the Mission Station, and reach Blaclc Head tlie scene of the 

 Catastropliy í'rom the Avestward. This we did successfuUy afler 

 many delays owing to bad weather, & ancliored noar liy. ^^"e 

 then i'owed to the headland & found the dead bodies lying in 

 a row, l'uUy dressed. The captain's wife was among them. 

 The natives had before this repeatedly visitcd the spot, & 

 taken away for their use all that they could find, but had 

 not touched the dead, save to bring the last two and place them 

 wilh the rest. As far as I can remember there were eleven bodies. 

 On looking about, a diary kept l)y the captain was found, in 

 which we learned that his vessel was the «San Rafael» of Li- 

 verpool, bound to Valparaíso with a cargo of coal. This took 

 fíre, & the ship's party had to ieave her lo her fate. They left 

 in two boats, and the other boat was picked up by a passing 

 vessel. But unhappily at night & during a snow-storm the 

 boats separated, and the captain & his party only too glad to 

 rest, landed on the first land they could reach, and after their 

 boat AA'as smashed against the rocks of their dreadful prison 

 did they flnd out the hopelessness of their lot. They found the 

 promontory abrupl all round, and cut otf froni the land at the 

 back by an impassable cleft, Ihrougli which the rough sea surged 

 continually. They landed there at night in a snow-storm. So 

 they began the lite of death, dealing out with a sparing hand 

 the few stores they had, eking them out with the meagre 

 sliellfish their rocky home supplied. Fortunately they could 

 get firewood, but not of good quality as the busli there was 

 of dwarfed evergreen trees. However they lived there some sewen 

 weeks, when they all rapidly failed & passed away. the living 

 being too weak to bury the dead. 



The poor captain wrote to his son a day or so before his 

 death telling him that he was then almost blind, and deplora- 

 bly weak and wretched, yet he expressed his carnest wish that 

 his son would live as a Christian should. 



We found it a difficult matter to bury the dead, because 

 the rock immediately underlay the scanty soil, Avchich was an 

 inseparable nctwork of roots, for owing to Ihe excessive hu- 

 midity the vegetalion was truly wondcrful. We did this last 



